Chapter Text
The man sighed as he patted down his own clothing, messenger bag hanging close to his body as he made sure he looked presentable. It was his first day as a teacher, after all. It’s not like he was overdressed, right? He only had a simple white dress shirt, black tie, black slacks, black gloves . . . and his mask. Stark white, lacking any distinctive facial features . . . just a flat white surface . . .
He had to admit, that was probably going to weird them out the most about him, not the fact that he might be overdressed for a teacher. He could already imagine the questions that would bubble up. ‘Why are you wearing that mask? Why do you have gloves on?’ and so on and so forth. He was never the best with words, so he just hoped he could put up a good enough act for them.
With a deep breath, he steeled his nerves as he continued the trek up the mountain to the campus. This was . . . a torturous climb. Who the fuck decided to build the satellite campus so far away? Up here of all places in the middle of nowhere? Wasn’t it dangerous for the students with all the potential wildlife and tumultuous terrain? What happens if one of them got hurt trying to get to class?
Those were probably concerns he’ll bring up to the principal some other time.
For now, he had to get to the building before the class bell rang.
He ran a hand through his cream-white hair as he sighed once more, recapping in his head what lead him to this point.
Firstly, the moon exploded, the culprit being this . . . yellow . . . thing that he got a report for not too long after. An intelligent creature, seemingly impervious to normal means of ‘disposal,’ with a top speed of Mach 20 . . .
He was then tasked to help mass produce weaponry to kill this creature some time after the incident, being hired by the Ministry of Defense for a large sum of money.
Secondly, apparently, the creature made a deal with the government to allow him to teach Kunugigaoka Junior High School’s class 3-E for a year before he would eventually detonate the earth in the same manner as he did to the moon. The class was then assigned the role of assassins, their target being their new . . . teacher, since they were now the only few who could be in such close proximity to him.
It’s been a bit since then, a few days past the students’ mid-term exams, and a lot of this still . . . didn’t make a lick of sense to him. Why would this creature be interested in teaching at this school, for this specific class? What’s his end goal in all this? What was there to gain from teaching these students, then blowing up the earth after they graduated if they weren’t able to kill him before then?
It was strange. The whole situation was. It piqued his interest though, and he got invested. Incredibly so, to the point that he was now here, walking up to the dilapidated schoolhouse (a far cry from the prestigious air of the main buildings).
He was to become a teacher for class 3-E as of today after so many tedious nights of dealing with miscellaneous paperwork— non-disclosure agreements, identity files and the like.
Perhaps he bit off more than he could chew due to his curiosity this time. He wanted to figure out what was going on here, to understand what he couldn’t right now. What was that thing’s deal? Was there progress in the creature’s assassination? How are the students handling his weapons? Would they even be able to kill him before their graduation?
He paused, reviewing that question as if it were in the palm of his hand. Would they? Could they?
. . .
Should it even be their responsibility to?
He felt a bit guilty, having these kids take up the heavier half of this mission. It wasn’t something they deserved to have to worry about for a bunch of teenagers. They were just kids after all. And now, they had to deal with killing their teacher, when all they should be worrying about is . . . kid things, like friendship drama and grades, or . . . something other than murdering their teacher . . .
He sighed. Now wasn’t the time to muse about this. He had to enter the building before he ended up late. Now that would be embarrassing, especially on his first day-
A tune rings out, making him jump from his thoughts. Oh, great. He just had to think about it.
He quickened his pace as he came upon the building, overgrown grass and weeds raking against his pant legs until he reached the door. Despite the look of it outside, the place was actually quite . . . tidy, if not a bit run down. Huh.
It smelled of air freshener, aged wood and worn paper. Chalk and graphite as well, but perhaps that was just the ghost of his own nostalgia skewing his senses just a tad.
He walked in fully and looked around a bit as he closed the door behind him, as he scratched at his mask’s surface for a moment before a voice cut through his thoughts in that moment, making him turn to look at its source.
“Ah, you’ve finally arrived. I was starting to think you lost your way trying to get here.”
Tall, spiky black hair, sharp black eyes, formal attire, stoic expression . . . yup, definitely him.
Karasuma Tadaomi. The Ministry of Defense agent that came to supervise the class and their new homeroom teacher, now working as the class 3-E PE teacher.
“The climb was a bit much.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
That seemed about right . . .
With that simple exchange out of the way, Karasuma began to briefly tour him around the school building. It was just the storage room and faculty office, so was it really a tour?
In the faculty office, four desks were arranged facing each other in pairs against a wall in a block, three of which already had various little trinkets and papers. He guessed the fourth was for him.
Before Karasuma and he left the office, he took off his messenger bag, slinging it over the chair of the empty desk. It wasn’t like he needed anything inside of it to meet with his students.
With all that out of the way, Karasuma led the way to the actually classroom. He could already see from the windows of the room each of the students, all participating in roll call, led by their . . . more than questionable homeroom teacher.
A roughly 2 meter tall yellow . . . octopus . . . creature . . . thing, dressed in graduation garb, holding the roll book . . .
He had to admit, looking at pictures and files of him was odd enough, but actually seeing him in the flesh? A whole new level of bizarre.
Without wasting any more time, Karasuma opened the sliding door to the classroom and entered, the masked man entering with him. All eyes were on them as soon as they did, including the beady eyes of the homeroom teacher, who spoke enthusiastically.
“Ah, Karasuma, good morning!” he greeted Karasuma. He then turned his attention to the other man. “And you must be the weapons engineer! You may call me Korosensei. I’m sure your more than acquainted with who I am, nurufufufufu!”
He didn’t exactly know what he was expecting, but he didn’t expect such a . . . relatively normal voice out of ‘Korosensei’, save for that strange laughter.
He nodded and looked around the classroom for a moment. The class seemed to have their interests piqued at the mention of “weapons engineer”; talking amongst themselves as Karasuma spoke up.
“Good morning, class. This is one of the weapon technicians responsible for the weapons that were distributed to you. He will be your math teacher starting tomorrow morning.”
“It’s a pleasure meeting you all.” he responded simply.
The class responded politely back to this greeting before he walked closer to the teacher’s desk.
“Now that the more formal introductions are done, I’ll entertain the class’s questions about me for the rest of the homeroom period. It’d be nice to get to know me before our formal lessons tomorrow, no?” he spoke with a sort of lax in his tone, as he leaned against the teacher’s podium, waiting for the inevitable questions to come flying in.
A small pause settled before the flurry of questions came in, most he expected.
“Are you a friend of Karasuma?”
“Nah, he’s just a work acquaintance.”
“Why do you wear a mask?”
“Mostly to protect my identity. My job is quite dangerous after all.”
“What’s with the gloves?”
“I work with a lot of machinery and chemicals, so I have my gloves on full time to make my job easier.”
“How old are you?”
“. . . Why do you care?”
After a bit, the room fell into quiet murmurs until another hand raised to ask another question. It was a dark-haired kid with brown eyes, who sat at the second seat in the arrangement. He could recognize the boy from their dossiers he studied the night before.
Class 3-E male class representative, Isogai Yuma.
“Uh, well . . . it’s a pretty weird question to ask now but . . . what’s your name? You never really told us.”
Oh.
Right.
Why didn’t he think about that until now?
He wasn’t exactly introduced with a name . . . and it wasn’t like he could use his actual name. Karasuma didn’t even know his name; he isn’t about to tell a room of 26 junior high schoolers that anytime soon!
He scratched at his mask a bit in a nervous tic, trying to think of what to say as the students began to murmur amongst themselves.
Luckily, he didn’t have to say anything.
“We can’t disclose that information at the moment.” Karasuma stated.
The weapons engineer really appreciated Karasuma’s bluntness here. At least he didn’t have to explain it himself.
“What kind of information can you disclose? It seems like everything’s a big ol’ secret with you, teach.” a boy with bright red hair piped up suddenly. Ah yes. Karma Akabane. He had some . . . interesting files on him . . .
“Only that which is absolutely necessary, Akabane.” he stated simply with a shrug.
“What’s absolutely necessary?” Akabane said mockingly, chuckling.
He tilted his head inquisitively at this.
“Is there a problem with that?”
“Sure, there’s a problem, teach,” the teenager started.
“You don’t seem like much, honestly, and yet you insist on hiding so much. What’s the big deal with you anyway?”
. . .
What was this kid’s problem?
Akabane continued.
“All you do is make the weapons we use. I bet you couldn’t shoot a gun, much less try killing the octopus!”
He was silent as the teen seemed to revel in his taunts.
He sighed.
It was juvenile to respond at all to the teenager’s teasing and prodding, but it was clear he didn’t take him seriously, and perhaps the rest of the class thought the same. To be taken seriously by a class of junior assassins requires one to stoop to such levels, he justified to himself.
With a quick motion of his arm, two small hidden pikes go from their concealed sheaths in his sleeve, to his hand. With a sudden flick of the wrist, they were flung into their target; Korosensei’s raised left hand (tentacle?).
They hit his two fingers, causing them to explode into a mess of pale-yellow liquid. SAAUSO rubber coated throwing needles.
There was a brief stunned sort of silence from the class as Korosensei stared at the needles as his tentacle began to heal. They weren’t kidding about his regenerative abilities, huh . . .
He spoke lightly.
“I’m more than capable of using my munitions for myself. How else would I know if they were good enough for you to use in the first place?”
His voice was plain and matter-of-fact as his mask made him look like he stared right through Akabane. The teenager scoffed quietly as he continued.
“As for trying to assassinate your homeroom teacher,” he turned to Korosensei for a moment before shaking his head. “I’m sure you all can catch him off-guard one of these days, but I’m not certain of myself and I don’t want to waste energy on something I don’t deem likely.”
“And you’d be right to assume so.” Korosensei chimed in, raising the now-healed left tentacle and pointing towards him in emphasis. “I don’t plan on making it that easy for you next time!” Green stripes appeared across his face.
“. . . Didn’t count on it.”
It was strange, speaking to an assassination target so casually about their own assassination, but Korosensei didn’t seem to mind his hesitant reply too much.
There was a small pause of silence.
“Anyhow,” he started again, clapping his hands together, friendlier attitude coming back as quickly as it had disappeared. “I suppose you do need something to call me . . .”
He thought for a moment, until an idea came to mind.
“Why don’t you guys give me a name?”
There was an air of disbelief to that reply, though there seemed to be a bit of understanding despite that, as if they’ve already had to deal with a situation like this.
They all began to murmur amongst themselves as simply watched on, thinking about the probable names he’d be given. Hopefully it won’t be something too outlandish or ridiculous.
“Oh, I know!” Korosensei suddenly spoke up, making him and the rest of the class turn their attention to him for a moment.
“How about we call you ‘Fumesensei’?”
Fumesensei?
. . .
That could work, sure.