Assassination Classroom: A Short Story

The Mysterious Girl

Upon the mountainside stood the worn building of Class-E, which held the dangerous secret of a certain mustard octopus with children whose favorite toys were knives. The trees towered beautifully over the sheltered schoolhouse with quiet streams whispering to the flourishing plants.

Tadaomi Karasuma, an employee of the government and temporary physical education teacher, sat down at his desk inside of the school. He opened up his computer to a strange and unexpected email.

"Another exchange student will arrive today. You are to make her feel welcome and accommodate any of her desires."

Karasuma glared at the email, then quietly sighed. After Ritsu and Itona, he had thought that it was clear that the students would kill the target, not some other assassin. He had no choice but to obey, though. This situation was out of his control and to his disliking, a combination he detested beyond everything.

. . .

"Alright students," Koro-sensei called to Class-E from the chalkboard, his tentacles flicking and wiggling around his body, "is anyone here familiar with the masterful workings of Edgar Allen Poe?"

Not weighting for an answer, his tentacles went to work and whipped out multiple books to wave around while other tentacles wrote on the chalkboard all of the books and short stories that Koro-sensei could not hold in his "hands." Just as he finished writing and providing a detailed story about what he would do if he had been friends with Poe, Koro-sensei turned his head when Karasuma entered the room.

"Oh, Karasuma-san?" Koro-sensei asked, his eerie smile not changing as his tentacles continued to move around randomly. "What can we help you with today?"

Grimacing ever so slightly, Karasuma walked to the front of the classroom and announced, "Today, another exchange student will join you."

The class groaned, then someone shouted, "Is she hot this time?"

The girls threw their previously hidden anti-sensei knives at him, which he barely managed to dodge.

"While the exchange student is female," Karasuma continued, earning a few intrigued looks, "you are to treat her as a fellow assassin. And you," he added as he looked at Koro-sensei, "are to treat her under the same rules as all of the other students. Understood?"

"Of course, Karasuma-san," Koro-sensei agreed readfully. "I can't wait to welcome them into the class."

Karasuma looked at the rest of the students, waiting for a response to his question.

The class nodded reluctantly. They could tell Karasuma wanted the new student as much as they did. The door to the classroom opened again and in walked a young girl with messy purple hair and sparkling green eyes. She glanced around the room constantly, and tried to pull her skirt down as low as it could go, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks.

"Welcome my dear student!" Koro-sensei exclaimed, one tentacle stretching out to shake her hand. "I am Koro-sensei. Welcome to Class-E."

The girl looked at the tentacle in front of her. After a moment of awkward silence, she looked up at Koro-sensei's ever-smiling face and warned, "If ya knew what I could do, ya wouldn't extend your hand that easily."

The entire classroom, including Karasuma who had yet to leave the room, went completely still. Eventually, the octopus retracted his tentacle and held up one finger. "Now now," he chided the girl, "it's not nice to brush people away. But don't worry, I can teach you all of the different ways of interaction between people, how to be kind, how to be civil, how to-"

An attractive blonde woman charged to the doorway. "YOU DAMN OCTOPUS! ARE YOU STEALING MY JOB!?"

"Irina!" Karasuma barked. "Settle down!"

The woman shirked behind the door and into the hallway, just out of sight.

"Sorry Bitch-sensei!" one of the students called from their seat. "It looks like someone else is trying to steal your title!"

The new girl turned and picked up a piece of chalk. On the board, she wrote something in a language that none of the students knew. Once she put the chalk down, she announced, "My name's Jewel. Nice ta meetcha. Now, would someone mind explainin' ta me what problem there is in this classroom? 'Cause I ain't seein' a problem."

"It sounds like she's speaking another language," Kaede whispered to Nagisa. "But I can understand every word she says."

Nagisa nodded, keeping his eyes on the new girl. "Yeah, it almost sounds like she's speaking English and Japanese at the same time."

"How do you think she's doing that?" Kaede asked.

"I don't know," Nagisa admitted with a defeated shrug of his shoulders, "but I intend to find out."

"What problem?" a voice in the back of the classroom challenged. Everyone turned to see Karma Akabane twirling an anti-sensei knife in his fingers. Then he stopped the knife and pointed it at Jewel. "The only problem I see here is you."

The girl nodded. "That's fair."

Karma fumbled his knife a little, just enough for Nagisa to notice his falter. "What was that?" Karma asked.

"I said that's fair. You ain't the first person to call me a problem."

"Oh yeah?"

The class's gaze shifted to Terasaka, the biggest kid in the class. "How about bitch then?" he suggested, his arms crossed defiantly.

"No no no," Karma chided him, earning a fiery stare from Terasaka. "She hasn't earned that title yet."

"Karma's right, Terasaka," Koro-sensei intervened. "We have to be creative and kind if we are going to rush into renaming our newest member. Now then" - his tentacles quickly put the books away and retrieved pencil and paper - "can you tell the class any other nicknames you have been called so that we can avoid any repeats. Pay attention, class. You too, Karasuma and Irina. I don't want our new student to be inappropriately named by the other teachers of Class-E."

Karasuma and Irina glared at him.

Koro-sensei ignored them and nodded for Jewel to begin. "Well," she started, "I've been called problem, monster, bitch, beast, troublemaker, cute, disgrace, obnoxious, sweetie, and a couple of words I swore ta never repeat."

Irina stepped back into the classroom. "Hang on, are you speaking Russian?" she asked in Japanese.

"She can't be speaking Russian," Karasuma countered. "I understand her, and I only know Japanese and English."

Jewel looked back and forth between the two human teachers. "I don't understand," she commented. "I ain't speaking English, Russian, or Japanese."

Everyone looked at her strangely. "But that's impossible," Terasaka declared. "We understand you. Hell, I understand you. You gotta be speaking Japanese."

Jewel turned to face the students, smiled, and shrugged. "Sorry, but that ain't something I can answer right now."

"Very well, we understand you, and that's what's important," Koro-sensei said as he put his pencils and paper away. "Will you please answer this question then before we continue with class?"

Jewel nodded.

The octopus slithered one of his tentacles to the board and pointed at what she wrote. "Would you mind informing the class what language you wrote your name in?"

Jewel looked at what she had written and squinted. "Think I wrote that in Dreamish. Or is it Langsquar? Probably Dreamish. No yeah that's definitely Dreamish."

Koro-sensei was quiet for a moment. "Thank you, Jewel," he finally said. "Please find a seat so that we may resume class."

Jewel bowed her head slightly, then proceeded to the back of the classroom. She took a seat between Itona and Ritsu, both of whom were looking at her strangely, though it was a bit harder for Ritsu to achieve a look of intrigue. There are only so many facial expressions that pixels can relate.

Koro-sensei turned back to the chalkboard and continued to teach, never erasing Jewel's name.