The Assassin Within

Part 26~AIFA

"It's beautiful outside, summer's right around the corner," Autonomous Intelligence Fixed Artillery announced with a sweet smile.

"She turned awfully cute overnight," Isogai muttered with sweat falling down his brow.

"This is... The Fixed Artillery right...?" Mimura gasped at the overnight change.

"Whatever, don't fall for her," Terasaka grumbled with a sneer. "It's just been reprogrammed by that octopus. No matter how cute it looks, it's still just a machine. I bet that piece of junk will start blasting away any time now."

"I understand how you feel Terasaka," Autono- you know what, I'm not righting that again- AIFA said with gloom around her. "I was a piece of junk, yesterday, but now." AIFA had tears falling down her face as she sobbed into her hands.

"Hey! You made her cry," Kataokascolded with her arms crossed.

"You made a 2D girl cry," Hara stated simply.

"She's not real," Terasaka shouted angrily.

"Don't say that," Nagisa ordered, glaring at the other.

"Why do you care?!"

"Because Digit would turn us into robots if we didn't stand up for her creation," Okabe stated simply, a smirk on his face.

"And we don't fancy becoming one of her experiments quite yet," Karma claimed.

"Speak for yourself. Digit wouldn't harm me. I just share her view on AI, specially developed self-learning AI like she has," Nagisa corrected with a wide smile on her face.

"Don't worry everybody. Digit helped me realize the importance of cooperating with others. I will do my best to be your friend and work together with you to assassinate Koro-sensei," AIFA claimed happily.

"So please try to get along," Koro-sensei requested with one tentacle up to scold the class. "And yes, although she had an upgrade, she's still programmed to assassinate me. So if you want to kill me, I'm sure she'll be a powerful ally."

"Okay Sugaya, there are two types of cells in the retina. the thin rod cell and the...?"

"Huh? Me? Ah, crap...."

AIFA smirked as she pulled her skirt up slightly, the words, cone cell written along her leg with an arrow pointed at it.

"Um, cone cell," Sugaya repeated though he didn't really know.

"Autonomous Intelligence Fixed Artillery! You can't do that," Koro-sensei scolded, punching his arms up in the air.

"But, I was programmed to help others," AIFA stated sweetly.

"Cheating isn't helping!"

"Wow... I didn't know you could make things," Okano gasped at the statue that AIFA had produced for them to see.

"Yes, I have a state-of-the-art 3D printer," AIFA explained with a slight blush on her cheeks. "I can make just about anything, guns for example."

"That sounds fun! How about, Ummm... Can you make flowers?" Yada held up her finger to ask the question.

"I'll need more data on flowers... Checkmate, Chiba." AIFA moved her arm to knock over the chess piece.

"Only her third game and she beat me already. Unbelievable," Chiba gasped.

"I never thought she's become so popular," Sugino commented.

"Tell me about it. She can even transform," Kayano praised. "Is there anything she can't do?"

"What about me?!"

"What about you?!" The class was unimpressed by Koro-sensei' insecurity as sweat fell down his forehead.

"Look, everyone! I can display a human face on my body too! I just change colours like so." Koro-sensei changed his face to displace a human face.

"Creepy!"

"Awww, you made the octopus cry," Karma pointed out as Koro-sensei cried in the corner.

"If he is going to be jealous of Ritsu then serves him right," Nagisa muttered unimpressed.

"Ritsu?"

Nagisa jumped to look at Kayano, a slight blush on his cheeks. "Oh, Digit named her last name while installing the upgrade. It means sincere. I hope that's okay, Digit tends to get carried away and forget to ask permission."

"It's wonderful! Please, call me 'Ritsu' from now on," Ritsu asked while laughing.

"She's fitting in nicely," Karma commented, making Okabe hum.

"I don't know about that." Okabe looked over at Terasaka with a worried glance. "I would hate to have to hide the body tomorrow."

"Oh calm down. Besides, it's not like the machine had a will of its own. What she does isn't really up to her. It's in the hands of her developers. And somehow, I don't think they'll like this new upgrade."

"Good morning everybody," Ritsu greeted monotonously, all signs of Digits hard work gone completely.

"The programmers complained that your upgrades were harmful," Karasuma stated with a grim look. Koro-sensei was about to point out that he didn't upgrade her but swiftly shut her mouth at Karasuma's glare. "And you, tape her up or cause her to malfunction again and hey will sue you for damages." Karasuma grabbed the tape out of Terasaka's hands, taking it away. "Sorry, but my hands are tied."

"They're cramping my style," Koro-sensei grumbled. "I'm here for the students, not the parents."

"Proceeding to the attack phase. You may begin your class when ready, Koro-sensei," Ritsu threatened with a dark aura.

Waiting, the class watched Ritsu out of the corner of their eyes. Waiting, just waiting for her to attack and start the trouble all over again. They could hear her motors starting up and with a klick, get ready to come out. They held their breath as they waited for the attack to come.

But it didn't. Flowers popped up instead of guns, presenting themselves to the class.

"I promised I'd make flowers," Ritsu announced. Digit installed nine hundred and eighty-five upgrades. Most were considered 'unnecessary for my function assassination. So they were thoroughly deleted from my memory. But in class E, I've learned the importance of cooperation and friendship. So I hid those programs in a corner of my memory where they couldn't be deleted.”

"Wonderful, in other words, Ritsu, you..."

"Yes, I disobeyed my parents!" Ritsu returned to her updated model, smiling sweetly. "Koro-sensei, this is what people call a 'rebellious stage' isn't it? Will I get grounded?"

"This is an appropriate act of self-determination for a third-year junior high student." Koro-sensei's face turned green with a laugh.

"Well, will you look at that?" Karma awed.

"Turns out she has free will after all, huh?" Okabe leaned in, smirking as he teased his boyfriend.

"Leave it up to Digit to give a machine free will."

"...We all agree to never tell her that she created a machine with free will, right," Nagisa asked as the other two nodded their head.

"Definitely."