The day of the exam arrived as scheduled.
Class E walked toward the rooms like they were walking onto a battlefield. Everything they had went with them. Notes. Nerves. The kind of silence people got before a fight.
Akira walked happily.
He stayed close to Erika, almost glued to her side, and smiled like the week had been a gift.
"Hehe. I am so excited about this exam. I did a lot of research on romance and dating these days. I am completely prepared for this."
Everyone around him turned.
How the hell was that related to exams?
What the hell was he even talking about?
Only Erika understood.
She pinched his cheek.
"Don't joke around. We have an exam."
Akira turned to her.
"I am not joking. I'm serious."
They came around the corner and came across Class A. Inside, the students stood in a pack, eyes dead as they stared at them, mouths moving.
"Kill the E Class. Kill the E Class…"
Yoshida stared.
"Hell of a look in their eyes."
Isogai's voice stayed low.
"I didn't expect it would be this bad when Asano told us about it before."
Nakamura folded her arms.
"They're probably psyching themselves up."
Akira brightened.
"Well. Fine. If you don't believe in my romantic research, let me give you a demonstration."
He turned to Class A.
Then he gave them the smile he had practiced and a wink.
"Everyone. Good luck on your exams, okay?"
Class A took it like a stun grenade.
All the hatred the principal's brainwashing had packed into them dispelled at once. Pure bewilderment replaced it. It was as if a sun had shone on their dark world and lit a path forward, leaving them standing there questioning their lives.
Akira turned back, pleased.
"See? That totally worked."
Everyone from E Class was already looking at him like he had grown a second head.
Nakamura muttered, "What the hell was that?"
Nagisa blinked.
"He lifted the principal's brainwashing with a single smile?"
Okajima stared.
"What kind of human are you?"
Erika shoved both hands over his face.
"Akira. I forbid you from using that again."
He protested into her palms.
"But I trained so hard. Can't I even use it on you?"
Erika pushed his face further.
"Especially on me… Wait. If you are going to use it, tell me before you do. I have to prepare my heart. Otherwise, no."
He drooped.
"But I worked so hard on it."
Karma grinned.
"Seems like this exam will be fun."
They split into their assigned rooms and sat down.
The bell rang.
For everyone else, the exam was a battlefield. The questions came like monsters. Hit the weak point or get buried. Do it inside the time limit, or the next one would already be on top of you.
Near Akira, a few of the Class E students noticed he wasn't writing.
He was fighting to keep his eyes open.
The training with Koro-sensei had created a new problem. He had finished the entire paper far too early, and now he had nothing left to do. Sleep was a bad idea in an exam room.
Sleep didn't care.
It came in waves.
What to do. What to do.
Nothing useful arrived.
He started vibrating in his seat. Then swaying. Then he staged a pen fight against himself, clicking one against the other as if that would keep his brain awake.
The invigilator noticed.
He walked over.
"Student. What are you doing? Why aren't you writing your answers? If you don't want to write anything, don't disturb the others."
Akira looked up, earnest.
"But I already finished everything."
The invigilator frowned.
"Impossible."
He checked Akira's paper.
Every blank was filled. As far as he could tell, every answer was correct.
He stared at the paper. Then at the clock.
It hadn't even been ten minutes.
"…How is that even possible?"
He walked away, dejected and questioning his life.
By the time the exam ended, Akira was the one who looked the most worn down.
Not from the questions.
From the boredom, and from the sleep he had spent the whole time fighting against.
In Class E, everyone was on pins and needles waiting for the results.
Even Akira didn't know the results. Erika had stopped him from hacking the principal's computer again. She said it would be more fun to see them together.
Koro-sensei appeared with the papers.
"Now then, class. I'll be returning your compiled exam papers. Did your second blades manage to reach their targets?"
Every face turned.
He held the papers in one tentacle and the result sheet in another.
"No grumbling about a point here or there, now."
The papers went out at Mach speed.
"Were your scores this time good enough to get you into the top fifty overall?"
He unrolled the big sheet.
"The main campus should be posting the overall ranks right about now, so let's start with the ranks here in E Class, too."
They stood and crowded around the board as he unrolled it.
Top rank, as usual: Akira. Full marks.
Second: Karma. Also full marks.
Third: Erika. Two marks missing in math.
Even Terasaka, dead last in the class, sat at 48th overall.
The room detonated.
"We did it!"
"We pulled down the Big Five in the battle for the top spots, too!"
"And Karma-kun finally matched Akira-kun's score!"
Koro-sensei set a tentacle on Karma's shoulder.
"How does it feel, Karma-kun? Tied on score with Akira-kun. Fighting on that kind of battleground and winning?"
Karma, for once, went a little pink.
"Um. Whatever, I guess."
Erika leaned into Akira and sighed.
"I lost to a junior high student… but math was too tough this time. It's all your fault."
She started shaking him.
The rest of the class was already talking over each other about the top fifty.
Okajima laughed.
"Boy, those A Class twerps must be white as sheets right about now!"
Maehara grinned.
"I bet they never thought they'd lose to us!"
Koro-sensei nodded.
"For their part, A Class did well on the first half of the exams. But it seems more and more students got hung up on the tougher problems in the second batch of subjects."
Nakamura folded her arms.
"Well, sure. You can't keep your bloodlust going for that long. Even with daily training, it's rough staying in that frame of mind for a whole day. If you want to dope with bloodlust, cramming won't work. You have to nurture it slowly but surely, over time."
Erika had moved on to smothering Akira with both hands.
"Why did you ask that principal for tougher questions? Why did you distract me before the exam?"
He struggled, happily.
"What distraction…"
Koro-sensei cut through the noise.
"All right, students. You've formally received your qualifications to move out of E Class. So, is anyone looking to leave this mountain?"
They looked at him with smiles.
And with anti-sensei weapons already in their hands.
Maehara answered first.
"Of course not!"
Mimura lifted his.
"We found our second blades. This is when it gets serious!"
Nakamura grinned.
"What other environment is this suited to an assassination?"
They opened fire.
Koro-sensei slipped through all of it, laughing.
"Nuruhuhuhuhu. Gluttons for punishment, eh? Then for your reward this time, I'll tell you my weakn—"
Boom.
The building shook.
"What happened?!"
"An earthquake!!"
"No, something outside."
They crowded around the windows.
Two excavators were already eating away at the old campus.
Kataoka stared.
"The school building!"
Akira, newly released, pointed at the glass.
"Who dares interrupt us when Erika was punishing me? Show yourself."
Principal Asano walked up the path like he had been invited.
"Oh, students. Prepare to vacate the premises."
Everyone looked at him in shock.
"Principal Asano!"
He didn't slow down.
"The board made the decision this morning. We're tearing down this old campus building today. I'll have you move to the new campus of our affiliate school, opening next school year. Until graduation, you will help us performance-test the building."
Everyone was even more shocked.
"The new campus?!"
His smile stayed polite.
"With a surveillance system and an anti-escape system drawn from correctional facilities, they can study in an environment akin to a more civilized prison. The new E Class. The culmination of my educational theories."
Nagisa stared.
"B-But moving us now?"
Sugino shook his head.
"No way! We wanna graduate from this campus!"
Akira had already walked out of the building.
He smiled at the principal.
"Oh. It's you, Principal. What now? Coming here to cry foul because your precious students, taught with the culmination of your educational theories, lost to us? You do realize what that means, right? Trying to teach top students like us with your inferior methods."
Nagisa winced.
"Wow. He is going for the kill."
Maehara nodded.
"That's brutal, all right."
The principal looked at him and didn't lose his smile.
"Hoshino-kun. In this world, strength is all that matters. And as principal, I can do what I want. Teach what I want."
Akira opened his mouth, ready to verbally destroy him.
Koro-sensei appeared beside him, one tentacle on his shoulder.
"Akira-kun. Leave this to me."
He turned to the principal.
"You'll carry out your educational vision to the very end, won't you?"
The principal took out a sheet of paper.
"Indeed. But make no mistake. You are no longer useful to my education. And this is where I kill you."
Koro-sensei saw the paper.
He backed up.
"Ehhhh!"
Isogai saw the paper and went pale.
"That's K-Koro-sensei's walking papers?!"
Maehara stared.
"He actually went there. He played his forbidden ace in the hole!"
Koro-sensei produced protest signs out of nowhere.
"That's wrongful dismissal!"
Sugino watched him wave them.
"It works hilariously well on this octopus."
Nagisa blinked.
"Can a super-creature even stage a protest?"
Akira put a hand to his forehead.
"Oh, it's too bad, Koro-sensei. It can't be helped. You have to go somewhere else. The assassination is over. You're free, Sensei. No one can find you or stop you from destroying the world now. That's too bad."
Koro-sensei caught on immediately.
He crumpled into a dramatic cry.
"Waaaah. It can't be helped. I'll just have to leave and hide until I destroy the world."
The class thought the same thing at the same time.
These two…
The principal smiled.
"Don't jump to conclusions yet. This is nothing but a tool to control my target. I have come, Koro-sensei, to kill you once and for all."
Akira folded his arms.
"I know you don't have the guts to actually fire him."
The class stared at him.
Dude. Why are you provoking him?
The principal turned toward the excavators.
"Hold off the demolition for now. I have some work to do inside."
Soon, it was only Koro-sensei and the principal in the classroom.
Five tables sat in a semicircle around the teacher.
The principal walked along the curve of them.
"Now then, Koro-sensei. If you don't want to be fired, if you want to protect this classroom, I'll have you join me in a little gamble."
No one knew what he meant yet.
He stopped.
"I've prepared five subjects' worth of test questions and five hand grenades. Four of them are anti-sensei grenades. One works on humans. They're the real deal."
He picked one up.
"They are identical in appearance and smell. They'll explode the moment their handles rise."
He pulled the pin, held the handle, and set it inside a book.
"I've pulled their pins and placed them carefully between random pages in the test books, handles in place."
He looked at Koro-sensei.
"You will open the book and solve the problem at the top right."
Hara's eyes went wide.
"As soon as he opens it, the handle will pop up and—"
The principal finished it for her.
"Yes. He'll almost certainly be hit with an explosion. But he can't move an inch until he solves that problem."
He turned back.
"You'll handle the first four books. I'll take the last one. If you manage to kill me or force me to withdraw, I will permit you and the E Class to remain here."
Akira cut in.
"Can you guys speed things up? I want to get back to what I was doing. No time for dramatic speeches."
Erika stepped on his foot.
The principal only smiled.
"No need to be hurried. Anyway. For now, Koro-sensei's chance of winning is twenty percent."
He set a hand on Koro-sensei's shoulder.
"You have to take four anti-sensei grenades head-on if you want to win. So, will you give it a try? It's also a test of how serious you are about your chosen profession. If I were you, I'd jump right in."
The room waited.
But Koro-sensei did not look panicked.
He looked almost relaxed.
"Sure. Let's do it."
He stepped up to the math book, opened it, solved it, and closed it in an instant.
"I finished solving this."
The class froze.
Wasn't solving problems under pressure one of his weaknesses?
The principal stared.
"How did you do this?"
Koro-sensei smiled at him.
"Well. It would have been tough for me with math before. But after doing exam preparation with Akira-kun, I got used to it."
Nagisa turned.
"What kind of exam preparation is this?"
Koro-sensei explained.
"Same setup as this. But all of his had real grenades, and all of mine had anti-me grenades. So I was prepared for this."
Erika looked at Akira.
"You guys prepared for the exam like this?"
He smiled.
"Well. It was more fun that way, right? I am preparing for the exams with my life on the line."
No one had an answer for that.
Erika's voice went flat.
"I will deal with you when we get back."
Koro-sensei was already moving.
"Anyway. Math is the only tough subject for me. As for the others, I already memorized those books."
The second book opened and shut.
Then the third.
The principal's smile thinned.
"You just happened to have memorized the books I just happened to bring?"
Koro-sensei explained.
"No. I've memorized all of Japan's test books. 'No moving out of the blast radius until you've solved the problem'? A rule like that is no trouble for a passionate educator. Here I thought you understood me. But it seems your students' defeat had unnerved you."
The fourth book closed.
"You've dug your own grave with this simplistic assassination. The last book… it's your turn."
He turned to look at him.
"What's it feel like, having your own death right before your eyes? That grand kaleidoscope glimpsed in the moments before death… what could be flashing through that perfect mind of yours?"
The principal looked straight ahead.
He did not move.
Nagisa whispered, "Why isn't he moving?"
Akira shushed him.
"Don't disturb him. He's in the middle of a flashback."
They waited.
Koro-sensei spoke first.
"Well, Principal Asano? Will you open the final book? No matter how superb you may be, opening a grenade-filled test book will not end well."
The students piled on.
"Hey, this was your wager."
"If you don't wanna die, just gracefully admit defeat!"
"And besides, we don't care if you fire Koro-sensei!"
"It'll be sad to leave this place behind, but we'll go where Koro-sensei goes."
"Even if it means leaving home or holing up in some mountain, we'll keep the assassination classroom going till March."
Koro-sensei cried emotionally, wiping his tears.
The principal stayed silent for a while.
"Koro-sensei. Under my educational philosophy, you could very well destroy the Earth and it wouldn't matter."
He opened the final book.
Boom.
The explosion swallowed both of them.
For a second, everyone thought the principal was dead.
Then the smoke thinned.
Koro-sensei had covered him with his molt.
"Nuruhuhuhuhu. Have you forgotten my molt?"
The principal looked down at the shed shell.
"Your once-monthly trick, eh?"
Koro-sensei explained.
"I was saving it for you. If I'd won, there's no doubt you'd have opted to blow yourself up."
The principal got up.
"How can you be so sure what I'd do?"
Koro-sensei stared at him.
"Because we have so much in common. Both stubborn education fiends, aiming for perfection in teaching even if it means using your own life."
His voice softened.
"I talked to your old cram school students during the exams. About their impression of you as a teacher. About what happened. The educational ideals I pursue are identical to yours a dozen years back."
He looked at the class.
"Where I've been lucky compared to you is with the E Class. Because there are a fair number of students, and because they share the same circumstances, they came together to withstand training and can ask each other for advice without holding things in."
He looked back.
"And Principal Asano, it's none other than you who made this E Class. You've unconsciously been carrying on the ideal education you came up with long ago."
He picked up an anti-sensei knife.
"I am the only one this knife can kill. We do not teach the theft of human life. You and I share the same ideals. Not a killing education, but one that lets us live. Let's keep on following through with our ideal education."
The principal was silent.
Then he said, "My philosophy is always correct. I've turned out a great number of students these past dozen years."
He took the knife from Koro-sensei.
"But now you've acknowledged my system as well. So I will deign to permit this E Class to remain."
Koro-sensei laughed.
"Nuruhuhuhuhu. Still can't simply admit defeat, I see."
The principal held the knife.
"Oh, and… may I come by and kill you now and then?"
Koro-sensei nodded.
"Of course. That knife suits a worthy rival well."
He walked away.
The class started to cheer.
Akira raised a hand.
"Just saying. We still have beef. I'll take you down legally one day."
The principal glanced back and smiled.
"Sure. You can sue me afterward if you want."
He left.
Erika looked at Akira.
"You just broke that moment."
Akira looked righteous.
"I couldn't help it. That guy still did a lot of evil things."
She sighed.
"Sometimes you are really petty."
The students packed in around Koro-sensei.
"By the way, Sensei. Where's our reward for the exam?"
He blinked.
"Oh, right! Sensei promised to tell you my crucial weakness, didn't I?"
They leaned in.
"In fact, I have surprisingly little power. I'm too specialized for speed. When I'm at a standstill, even a single human can hold back one of my tentacles."
Kataoka's eyes sharpened.
"So if we all locked down all of your tentacles…"
Nakamura finished it.
"…we could stop you from moving?"
They lunged.
"If we could figure that out, this would've been a cakewalk!"
"You only told us 'cause you knew it was impossible, octopus!"
Koro-sensei stretched his tentacles and made himself taller, slipping out of their hands. He turned grey.
"Hmm. No luck, eh? The trick is to pretend you're grabbing a slime eel."