We all sat in class as our teacher walked in and flopped the attendance book on his desk.
"Le's get going!" he told us with his usual smile on his face. "Everyone stand for the pledge!" Our teacher wasn't like other teachers. For one thing, he was yellow and had who knows how many tentacles coming from his body. For another...
"NOW!" We all rose to our feet and pointed our guns at him. "GET READY!" We're his assassins. "FIIIRE! We fired our guns at him, but he managed to dodge our bullets with his Mach 20 speed.
"So I guess we're not doing the pledge then. Okay, you may keep shooting while I take attendance. Isogai."
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over all these gunshots. Could you speak up, please?"
"Um... Here!"
"Okano."
"Here!"
"Asano."
"Here!" I called out.
"Kataoka."
"Here!"
We ran out of bullets before he finished with roll call and slumped where we stood.
"Everyone's here... and on time! Wonderful! I'm so happy!" We're assassins and our target is our teacher.
"You missed again. That's too bad," he told us. "You're relying too much on the "spray and pray" method. Your method is too predictable. Consider your line of sight, where you're aiming, your trigger finger. You have to come up with a more original plan. I'm too quick for you. I can move at Mach 20, remember?"
"Are you really dodging all those bullets?"
"Well, they're more like BB's than bullets..."
"Maybe we're hitting you, but you're just pretending we didn't!"
"Yeah! You're cheating!" the class cheered.
"Okay. Someone, please hand me a gun that's loaded." He took the offered gun and pointed it at one of his tentacles. "As I said, these bullets - BB's - are harmless to you..." he fired the gun and his tentacle splattered. "But they were designed especially for me. They can cut through me like pudding. Heh. Of course, I can regenerate lost limbs and such in a few seconds." As he spoke another tentacle regrew from the damaged limb. "But I wouldn't want anybody to accidentally shoot their eye would with these. So please don't use the gun inside the classroom unless you are trying to kill me." His yellow, bulbous head got three green stripes going across it. "I hope you can kill me before graduation. Now, please put away your guns, pick up all the bullets, and let's get this room in order. It's time to start class." Kunugigaoka Junior High Class 2-E is the Assassination Classroom. It's weird how our teacher went to the Department of Defense and asked to teach our class, the lowest of the low, but they used it and told us we had to kill him while keeping him a secret from the world.
"Okay Kimura, which of my tentacles is pointing to the sentence with the relative clause?"
"The blue one?"
"Correct! The "who" in this sentence begins the relative clause." How did we end up this way, you ask? We all have our own stories for why we're in this particular class, but two things happened at the start of our third year. I looked outside to see the eternally crescent moon.
Flashback
"Nice to meet you," a tentacled thing said standing in front of our classroom. "I'm the one who disintegrated part of the moon. And next year at this time I'm going to do the same thing to your planet Earth. Also, I'm your new teacher. I hope we get along well." Of course, after that, things got even weirder.
"My name's Karasuma. I'm from the Ministry of Defense. What I'm about to tell you is extremely confidential. This is a top secret operation, and I need your help. To put it bluntly, I want you to kill this monster!"
"U... Excuse me... is this guy some kind of, uh, alien who's come to, like, destroy the planet?"
"How rude! I was born and raised on Earth!" the creature told us.
"Sorry, that information is classified. But he's telling you the truth. Also, he destroyed most of the moon and he plans to destroy the Earth next year after your graduation. Only the world leaders know of this. So we're trying to kill him before the world finds out causing a mass panic. In other words, your assignment is to..." Kurasuma pulled out a knife and swung it at the creature, but he moved so fast we didn't see it! "Assassinate your teacher. As you can see he's incredibly fast! Right now he's trimming my eyebrows with amazing accuracy and skill!" All while trying to dodge this guys knife hand?! "He's powerful enough to blow up the moon and to fly at Mach 20! In other words, if he really tried to escape us we'd never be able to catch him until it was too late!"
"But that would be boring. So I made a proposal to the world leaders," our new teacher told us. "Although I have no intention of getting killed, I want to be the teacher of Class 3E at Kunugigaoka Junior High.
"But why?" I asked.
"We don't know, but we accepted his otter under the condition that he never harm any students. At least while he's teaching, we'll be able to keep an eye on him. And, best of all, thirty of you can attempt to kill him every day at close range!"
Present Day
A gunshot went off but our teacher was able to catch the BB between two pieces of chalk.
"Nakamura, didn't I tell you that you may only try to kill me as long as it doesn't interfere with your studies? Go stand in the corner."
"Sorry, ugh I hate how red his face gets when he's mad." Nakamura rubbed the back of her head before putting away her gun and doing as she was told. It was strange and brought on all sorts of questions. Why did this thing want to be our teacher? Why do we have to assassinate him? And what's in it for us?
Flackback
"Ten billion in cold cash!" Kurasuma told us when someone had finally asked. "If you kill him! Believe me when I say assassinating him will save the world! Luckily for you, he doesn't consider you children a threat. Look, see those green stripes? He doesn't think you can do it."
"Neat! He's like a chameleon!"
"Of course I don't," the creature had told us. "You're not an army. when I was attacked by a state-of-the-art fighter plane I waxed it in midair for them."
"Why did you polish it for them!?"
"Just strike while his guard is down," Kurasuma told us. "We'll give you special weaponry harmless to you, fatal to him! But remember, this is top secret. You must tell no one! We don't have a lot of time. And nowhere to go if he destroys the Earth."
"Exactly," the creature agreed. "So until then, I want all of you to live the remaining year of your life as productively as possible!"
Present Day
The bell finally rang, signaling our thirty-minute lunch break.
"Lunchtime. I'm going to zip over to China for some Mapo Tofu. If anyone wants to try to assassinate me during our lunch break feel free to give me a buzz on my cell phone." And with that, he was gone.
"Must be nice to be able to bly at Mach 20."
"At that speed, it's about a ten-minute flight to Sichuan province to get authentic Mapo Tofu."
"No wonder they can't shoot him down with a missile."
"He even grades our test while flying," I added.
"Seriously?!"
"Yeah, he liked my answer. He even drew a little octopus next to it."
"You know, he's not a bad teacher."
"Yeah. I tried to assassinate him after school but he started tutoring me in math and I aced the test!"
"Too bad he wants to destroy the Earth," I sighed.
"Well, yeah.. but we're still Class E. So why work so hard for nothing?" Those of us in Class E were examples of failure for the other students at the main campus. Our school is divided into two buildings. The main campus where Classes A-F are located. Those students get the best grades, participate in the sports and have actual futures. Then there's us. Class E. Located in the old school building on the top of the mountain. We're all here for either bad grades or bad behavior. We in Class E have no future to go to a good high school and aren't allowed to be in any of the teams. We'd come to terms with that a long time ago though.
"Let's write some free-verse poetry," our teacher said. "I'd like you to end all your poems with the word tentacles. Please bring them to me when you're done. I'll be checking on grammar as well as your use of metaphors and similes. If you're done, you may leave for the day."
"I have a question."
"Hm? What is it, Kayano?"
"I know the school year has already started, but what's your name?" Kayano asked him. "We can't really call our teacher "strange octopus thing we have to kill"."
"That's a bit long, yes," he agreed. "You know, I don't have a name! Why don't you think of one for me? But after you finish your poem."
"Okay." Nagisa stood up with his paper in his hand and started for the front of the room.
"Ah, done already, Nagisa?" Our teacher's face was a light pink like it normally was after lunch. I noticed a knife in Nagisa's hand and my eyes widened. Was he really going to kill our teacher? Class E. Full of losers and outcasts. One day, we'll show them they're wrong about us. We will prove to everyone what we can really do. We're prepared to kill for that chance. Nagisa tried stabbing him in the head, but our teacher grabbed his arm and stopped him. "I told you already, you need to come up with a better plan." Nagisa seemed to fall on him in a large hug before a large explosion happened where they were standing.
"Yeah! We did it! That 10 billion is mine!" Terasaka shouted while jumping for joy.
"Sucks to be you!
"I bet he wasn't expecting that!"
"Hey, Terasaka! What did you give Nagisa?" Kayano asked him.
"A toy grenade stuffed with gunpowder and those special BB's. made quite a mess."
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" I shouted while throwing a book at him. "We're supposed to kill our teacher not each other!"
"Don't worry, it's just a little explosion. I'll cover Nagisa's medical bills with my 10 billion." That was when we noticed the covering on Nagisa protecting him from the explosion. At least it seemed to protect him. He wasn't covered in burns or any sign of the explosion at all.
"Actually, I shed my skin once a month or so. I covered the bomb with it to absorb the explosion. I don't like having to do that." Our teacher was on the ceiling staring down at us, his face was a pitch black color we'd never seen before. He must have been furious with us. "Terasaka! Yoshida! Muramatsu! You came up with this plan, didn't you?!"
"What? N-No! It was Nagisa!" And he was gone. It was only for about 30 seconds before he came back with his arms full. He dropped three nameplates from houses, each with the name of one of the three who'd come up with the plan to kill him by hurting Nagisa.
"I made a deal, I promised I would never harm any of you, but if you try to assassinate me like that again..." he dropped what he was holding to reveal all of the nameplates from our houses. "Let me remind you that everyone else is fair game! Your family, your friends, maybe the whole world, except you." That was the moment we realized we couldn't run. The only way to keep everyone we cared about safe was to kill him.
"Wh... what are you?! You're a nasty creature! You disintegrate most of the moon and tell us you're going to blow up the Earth. Why shouldn't we use nasty methods to kill a nasty creature?!" Terasaka asked him.
"Nasty?" Teacher asked. His face was yellow again with a green circle on it. "I thought your idea was wonderful. Brilliant. Especially your contribution, Nagisa." The circles on his face became two circles as he patted the boy on the head. "I give you ten out of ten for your smooth and natural movements up until you grabbed me. I was totally caught off guard. However!" His face went red with a darker red x on it. "The rest of you didn't even consider Nagisa's safety, and Nagisa let you take advantage of him! You're better than that.. all of you! I want you to assassinate me with a method that brings a smile to your face, one that you can take pride in. You're more than capable of that. Just take a few words of advice from your target." Our teacher scolded us and praised us in one sitting. Was it strange I thought he would actually be able to see us for us. "Well then, I have a question for you, Nagisa. I have no intention of getting killed. I'll enjoy teaching you until the end of the school year, and then I'll destroy the world. So what do you need to do to prevent that from happening?"
"I'll kill you before I let that happen!" Nagisa told him with a smile on his face.
"Then let's see you kill me right now. I'll let you go home early if you do!" We are assassins. Our target is our teacher.
"A teacher who can't be killed. "Sensei" means "Teacher". "Korosenai" means "can't be killed". How about if we call you Korosensei? It's a pun!" Korosensei and the Assassination Classroom. Looks like we'll be back tomorrow in another lesson.