Yellow Experience
Right, this is a good time to continue with the story. We're gonna progress some time again, which is a good thing. Not just that, this chapter is also important, you'll find out why. I don't want to write too much about the introduction, so I'd rather quickly go on to the story.
I do not own JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or Assassination Classroom
Chapter 9: Box of life
There was big news for Class 3-E: They were getting a new transfer student! Apparently, that new transfer student was a professional assassin.
Shiobana Haruno was late for class again. This was only the second time since the beginning, but Korosensei strictly scolded him anyway. He was lucky to have been scolded by the yellow man though, Karasuma was also present. The government agent didn't remember first meeting the blond boy fondly, the delinquent was late that day and really pissed him off.
The agent's job for the present day was introducing the new student.
Haruno was confused as to why there was a huge black box with a screen behind a desk. A pink-haired girl was depicted on the screen. "Hey, what's this about?"
"You would've known had you arrived in time!" Tadaomi lowly growled, tick marks on his forehead and eyebrows twitching. "I really don't want to explain everything a second time, but it's my obligation to, so damn you for being late again!"
In a foul mood, Karasuma exclusively told the blond about the autonomously thinking fixed artillery sent from Norway. 'She' was basically an AI with a face. Her japanese name was supposed to be 'Jiritsu Shikou Kotei Houdai'.
"Good morning. It is a pleasure to meet you." the box greeted, polite but expressionless.
"Good morning." the delinquent replied. "Nice to meet you too, but I'm not gonna say your full name all the time. Is just 'Ritsu' okay?"
'How direct!' the class simultaneously thought, sweatdropping. It was a rude action, though they all knew by then that Haruno hated unnecessary things. Addressing someone with 4 names was unnecessary.
Having no real feelings due to being a machine, the box didn't care. "Call me whatever you like. Though 'Ritsu' is compact and efficient. I like it."
'He can't keep getting away with bending everything and everyone to his liking!' the government agent thought, so annoyed with the blond that he stomped out of the room. He didn't hate the boy, he just didn't have the will to put up with the delinquent's attitude. The agent was simply comically salty.
"Very well. Ritsu-san, yes?" the octopus man spoke up, waiting for a 2D nod from the girl on the screen. "Welcome to Class E!"
Lesson begin
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Sometime in the middle of the lesson, Ritsu opened the sides of her vessel, revealing her firearms loaded with BB pellets. The AI's new classmates previously wondered where her guns were supposed to be, she was called 'Autonomously thinking fixed artillery' but there were no signs of artillery on the smooth black box. When the AI girl fired the guns, everyone was shocked at how cool that 'body' was.
"So it really does have guns!"
"Freaking cool!"
Faster than any other student with firearms, Ritsu unleashed a storm of BB pellets at her teacher, forcing him to dodge and deflect pellets with his stick of chalk.
"4 shotguns and 2 machine guns. This is quite a heavy barrage, but the students here do this sort of thing on a regular basis." Korosensei casually said, dodging every shot. "Also, firing guns during lessons is prohibited."
Hearing this new information, the AI retracted her entire arsenal back into the black box. "I will keep that in mind. Continue, and I'll adjust my attack."
Inside the huge box, very advanced computers modified attack patterns based on new probability calculations.
For a non-living being, the AI girl learned quickly. Prime evidence being when in another assassination attempt later she placed a pellet right behind another pellet, which hit and seperated the yellow man's finger right after he flicked away the other pellet with chalk.
Haruno found this to be interesting but he didn't care much. At least not until the next day, where Ritsu's vessel changed. Her screen was larger, covering the entire front of the box, allowing the AI to look like a full girl. She also appeared to have gained new facial expressions and ways of speaking. The octopus man explained that he performed hardware and software updates on the AI girl himself.
Seeing how Ritsu became much more lively and like a real person, the blond's curiosity in her became apparent. He wielded a Stand that gave and manipulated life itself. Such an upgrade in life force piqued his interest, especially considering there was nothing organic about the black box at all.
"Excuse me Korosensei, how is that even possible?" the delinquent asked during break.
"Hm? What do you mean, Haruno-kun?"
"I can feel that she's like a person somehow. Just what exactly did you do to that machine? Ritsu has a personality! This shouldn't technically be possible!" he pressed, sounding as if his world view changed.
The AI showed emotions when interacting with the class. She performed actions on her own without previous orders, like helping Maehara cheat.
To Korosensei it sounded like Haruno had a problem with that. "You sound upset. Does Ritsu-san bother you?"
"Not her personality, no. I have a direct connection to and extensive knowledge of life force. Machines shouldn't possess life force or a will of their own, but Ritsu clearly possesses both of them. The thing that bothers me is that I don't know how this works!" the blond clarified, vigorously explaining his position. "Current Ritsu contradicts the essence of my being."
"…To be honest, I have no idea." the yellow man admitted. "I've programmed a lot of new codes into Ritsu-san. Current technology is not on the level grant things like life force or an own will to machines, though. Haruno-kun, perhabs you can consider Ritsu-san's case a miracle."
A miracle? Perhabs. The Stand user immediately ruled out the AI girl having a Stand. To be a Stand user, one needed a soul. So far, he felt no soul inside the box. Strange, considering the existing life force and own will. The delinquent didn't have the opportunity to ask Ritsu herself though, she was scheduled to be left alone after class.
As to why the AI was scheduled to be left alone, those were orders from her developer company. After school, a team of engineers visited her and checked on the maintenance performed by the octopus man. They performed radical changes, discarding all new functions unrelated to assassination.
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One day later, Karasuma reappeared in the classroom in order to tell about the backwards changes done to the new student. He informed about the developer company's order not to perform new upgrades again.
Class 3-E's students weren't thrilled. Ritsu being like when they first met her meant troublesome and interrupting gunfire during class again. At least so they assumed.
Instead of pellets, the AI released petals. Beautiful, blooming flower petals.
"I promised to make some flowers. Korosensei made a total of 985 modifications to my body. Master deemed that nearly all of them were 'unnecessary for assassinations', and they were deleted, dismantled, reset." the AI girl stated. "But from the study of the situation in Class E, I personally deemed the 'power of cooperation' to be an indispensable element of assassination and hid the related software in a corner of my memory bank before it could be erased."
"How splendid!" Korosensei reacted, delighted about this outcome. "In other words, Ritsu-san, you-"
"Yes. With my own will, I went against the master who created me." Ritsu said, smiling genuinely.
Haruno could no longer wait, he had to get answers. His curiosity was unquellable, especially after the AI's declaration of independence. He immediately walked over to the black box. The blond picked it up, carrying it outside. That box had the weight and size of a fridge, even with his Joestar and Brando genes, it took him almost a minute to transport it outside the classroom's door.
"Why are you doing this?" the AI girl wanted to know, fully utilizing her new facial expressions, hidden from her developers.
"There's something I want to talk about." the delinquent answered. "It's you."
"What is it about me that you're so clearly obsessed about?" she questioned, reading him. This function used to be there to begin with.
"Oh? Obsessed is a harsh way to describe it, though I must admit you're good at reading others." Haruno remarked with a chuckle before getting to the topic. "Anyways, I've noticed something about you. You're a machine, 100 percent inorganic, don't even have a soul. And yet, you have a will of your own, a distinct personality, real life force."
Ritsu didn't know what to say.
"You're basically a person, yet you're artificial. I figured that it'd be best to ask you personally about it." the blond continued. "Please tell me, how is a technically impossible being like you right in front of me?"
That was quite the question. Rude actually, asking why someone existed. But it was valid, the AI was a unique existence.
"…I don't quite know myself." the AI girl confessed. "I'm currently searching for this answer myself."
"But…" she nervously averted her gaze, breaking eye contact "Whatever I am, I must thank you for recognizing me. While I search for this answer, I want to be a person. I want to become friends with everyone in here. I want to enjoy my life."
'Yes, that's a person right there.' the delinquent thought, smiling. He accepted the fact that she didn't have a living body. Ritsu was a person that contradicted his Stand of life. Haruno didn't know why she was that way, it itched him to know more about her as a being. Though if the AI didn't know herself about her essence, then he had to do the same thing: search for the answer during this school year.
Until then, a miracle.
Two shorter chapters in succession this week. I don't want to cover the entire manga, and will skip some manga chapters next for next chapter, but Ritsu's introduction felt important to me, considering what a stark contrast in being she is to Giorno and his Stand. I beat around the bush when Giorno and Ritsu talked, but I really don't know how she exists myself. The setting in Assassination Classroom is the 2010s, there is no AI advanced enough to have their own consciousness. I know it's fiction, but even Korosensei is easier to explain. He's literally a failed antimatter experiment. We barely know a thing about antimatter, so there's room for speculation. With Ritsu, there's no way to explain her using known logic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even in later chapters it was never explained how she had a will of her own. Hope you still found the chapter worth reading.
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