The next morning.
Most of the students on campus were still lost in dreams.
Click. The door to Chris's dorm room eased open from within.
Freshly washed and changed back into their neat everyday uniforms, Arisu Sakayanagi and Amanatsu Kazuha stepped out of the room one after the other.
The two girls exchanged a brief, wary glance in the hallway.
Maybe it was the memory of last night's mortifying, best-forgotten mishaps, but something uneasy flickered in both their eyes at the same moment.
Without so much as a word between them, they turned in perfect unison — as if nothing at all had happened — and strode off briskly in opposite directions.
Not long after, Chris, fully dressed, pushed the door open.
Finding the hallway outside empty, he wasn't surprised in the least.
Setting aside Arisu Sakayanagi, who had always guarded her pride fiercely—
—even Amanatsu Kazuha, raised in the White House and outwardly so carefree and bold that nothing seemed to faze her, had a past she'd never let anyone touch and a line of embarrassment she wouldn't cross.
Not that Chris had any interest in deliberately picking at old wounds, of course.
It was simply that he'd had more than enough practice handling these two — girls with more schemes between them than holes in a honeycomb briquette.
So even though all he'd used last night was the indirect sensory-transfer trick of the [Magic Butt] item — a harmless little maneuver, really — it had been more than enough to crack their masks and expose the sides of themselves they'd rather keep hidden.
All Chris had actually put in was a bit of false information — carefully seeded to set up his future plans, and tailored to fit exactly what they'd already half-imagined anyway.
Still, for two girls this naturally suspicious, it probably wasn't such a bad thing in the end.
'Yeah, call it a win-win-win.'
Sakayanagi and Amanatsu got what they wanted, and I... won twice over.
Chris thought this without a shred of guilt, glancing up at the horizon.
Dawn had only just begun to break, the east tinged with a cold, pale wash of light.
He glanced down at the special phone issued by Advanced Nurturing.
A message had popped up on the screen, sent by Sae Chabashira:
[New transfer students are enrolling today. A few newly hired teachers are coming with them, and one of them may be taking over Hoshinomiya's position. If you have time, keep an eye on it.]
Chris didn't think much of the message.
He swiped it away and instead opened the hidden location tracker to check on Sakayanagi's and Amanatsu's positions.
The red dots showed both of them had just returned to their own dorm blocks — probably rushing to change back into their Advanced Nurturing uniforms.
Studying the tracking screen, Chris rubbed his chin, struck by a thought:
This feature... say what you will, it was genuinely handy for catching people cheating.
After all, even a fuzzy location dot was enough — just pull up two people's position histories, compare the overlap in where they'd lingered...
Anyone with a functioning brain could piece together what that meant.
And the only prerequisite for pulling this off was simply having the other person added as a friend.
Counting it up, there were probably no shortage of people who could guess Sakayanagi and Amanatsu had spent the night at his place.
Then again, outside of using it to locate people during exams, hardly anyone actually bothered stalking others through it day after day just for fun.
As far as Chris knew, the one person who might actually do that was Shiraishi Asuka.
Now that the Black Sphere exam had descended, she no longer had any reason to keep watching Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
Her only task now was simply to survive.
And since she never much cared for socializing, she'd naturally find some way to satisfy her own private cravings in her downtime.
Amanatsu Kazuha had already gone on the offensive with tactics like tailing people and observing them face-to-face.
Which meant the approach best suited to someone as reserved — and as much of a voice fetishist — as Shiraishi Asuka would be to quietly track Chris's movements and plant devices to collect his voice on the sly.
Honestly, given her personality, no matter how much she might want to, she'd probably never go as blatant as Amanatsu's open tailing. More likely she'd quietly pine the way Hiyori Shiina did, content just to catch one distant glimpse from afar.
But then again... whose fault was it that this rotten school's tracking feature was just too damn convenient?
It was basically handing her the murder weapon.
Really, this isn't something I wanted to bring up.
You're the one who keeps handing out the opportunity!
Chris shook his head and, with a helpless sort of resignation, stuffed the phone back into his pocket.
He turned and headed toward the administration building, where new students were handling their enrollment.
After all, since Sae Chabashira had gone out of her way to send that message, even the man secretly pulling the strings still had to go through the motions.
He arrived at the admissions office.
It was still early — high schools in Neon never officially started morning reading until eight — so hardly anyone was around this part of campus yet.
At a glance, Chris spotted a blond figure in the distance, arms crossed, gazing quietly off into the horizon.
He slowed his pace and walked closer.
"Kouenji... you're up early today."
Hearing his voice, Kouenji Rokusuke turned to glance at him and chuckled.
"Boy~ I'm sure you saw Ichinose's message in the group chat last night too."
"I figured I'd come by and see if I'd run into any interesting wrinkle. I've got nothing else going on anyway — think of it as a little variety spice for my otherwise dull training."
Chris took the opening.
"Didn't expect you to guess right. This round's Black Sphere teachers really are arriving alongside the new transfer students."
"Whether they'd actually show up here, though, I had no idea — that's why I came to check."
Kouenji narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
"...Sakayanagi told you?"
"You could put it that way. Though Chabashira-sensei also messaged me this morning as a heads-up," Chris answered offhandedly.
Kouenji rubbed his chin and let out a sigh tinged with envy.
"Having a father who's a board director sure is convenient. Add her own special clearance on top of that, and there's probably no one in this school better informed on the inside track, whatever the subject."
Chris nodded slightly, not lingering on the topic.
He turned his head, his gaze landing on a girl not far off.
She wore a black sailor uniform clearly different from Advanced Nurturing's standard, mixed in among a handful of early-arriving transfer students, craning her neck and looking around with obvious curiosity.
Chika Fujiwara.
Best friend of Kaguya Shinomiya and Hayasaka Ai, and the student council secretary of Shuchiin Academy's second-year high school class.
At the end of the day, she was just a plot device Chris had casually pulled in from the neighboring set to lay groundwork for a future 'world-fusion' event.
But given her naturally carefree, even scatterbrained personality, she still hadn't noticed anything was wrong, even after being dropped into an entirely different world.
She simply assumed the school had issued a new uniform design at some point without her noticing.
As for the entirely unfamiliar surroundings and all the unfamiliar faces, her thick-skulled obliviousness had automatically filed them all away as unremarkable.
After all, Shuchiin Academy was Neon's most elite aristocratic high school.
With the Shinomiya conglomerate's deep pockets, quietly building an entire new campus overnight didn't seem entirely impossible... right?
In truth, for someone living an ordinary, peaceful life, it was hard to leap straight to 'I've been transported to another world' just because the surroundings changed a little.
At most, she'd chalk it up to still being half-asleep and hallucinating, or maybe having wandered into some weird puzzle-realm like in anime.
That was exactly the carefree, guileless thought running through Chika Fujiwara's head.
Until, suddenly, something entered her field of view — a creature covered head to toe in yellow, an eerie grin plastered across its big round head, looking for all the world like an enormous humanoid octopus.
"Whoa! That's such a realistic mascot costume..."
Her eyes lit up, and she couldn't help closing the distance a couple of steps. "I can't even see the seams! If I could get someone to make me one like this... I could sneak up and scare Kaguya with it — she'd never guess it was me!"
Chika Fujiwara was already scheming up her prank with great enthusiasm.
Chris, who had come up beside her without her noticing, kindly offered a warning.
"That... doesn't look like a costume to me."
Chika Fujiwara let out a surprised "huh?" and turned to look at the handsome underclassman who'd spoken up.
Kouenji Rokusuke, beside Chris, studied the yellow creature carefully and added:
"Looks like this is the new teacher the Black Sphere sent over. Very unique look, this one."
Chris nodded in confirmation.
"Matches the photo Sakayanagi sent over well enough. But didn't the file say there'd be two more teachers?"
Overhearing them, the round head of the creature further off — "Korosensei" — twitched.
Kouenji raised an eyebrow.
The yellow octopus creature, as if it had indeed heard them, ambled over with a comically bouncing gait until it stood right in front of them.
"Nurufufufufu..."
Korosensei let out his signature eerie laugh, his big round face shifting to the orange-with-a-blush that marked delight.
"Haha, I heard your world has gotten pretty dangerous lately, and it sounded like you were sorely lacking a fine educator like myself, so I just couldn't wait to rush over."
"Hello there, nice to meet you all. I'll be your Assassination Class teacher from now on. Feel free to call me Korosensei!"
With that, the yellow humanoid octopus extended two soft tentacles, gesturing amiably for a handshake.
Chika Fujiwara, brimming with curiosity, gave one a cautious shake.
The moment she felt the unmistakably real, living texture of the tentacle — its faint warmth, its soft springiness—
"Eep?!"
Chika Fujiwara's expression shattered into pure shock, and she yanked her hand back.
She'd apparently just realized this was nowhere near a simple rubber mascot costume.
Korosensei paid no mind to the petrified Chika, instead glancing over at the other new transfer students nearby, most of them trembling in reactions not so different from hers.
Then he turned back to Chris and Kouenji Rokusuke.
"I heard from Gantz that I'm indeed not the only one coming this time."
"But I am your future teacher after all — how could I let my adorable students wait too long? So I made a point of hurrying ahead to come say hello first."
Korosensei suddenly produced a pink handkerchief from who-knows-where and dabbed theatrically at nonexistent tears in the corners of his eyes.
"If you all neglect me too much, Korosensei here is going to get very sad. Sniff, sniff..."
Facing this octopus with absolutely zero teacherly dignity, Kouenji thought it over and asked:
"Korosensei, since it's called Assassination Class... I'm guessing it's similar to those shooting and survival classes we've had before — an extracurricular elective open to the whole school?"
Korosensei immediately stopped his fake crying and nodded.
"That's right."
"But, teacher here can already tell!" The colors on his face shifted into the confident-striped pattern. "You three have a really unusual presence about you — strong. Definitely not the type to just accept dying and drift along with the current. Which means there's a good chance you'll end up being my students!"
"So let's get along well starting right now, okay!"
Chris cut in right on cue, probing:
"Sensei, can you use your full abilities within this school?"
Korosensei shook his head and let out a candid sigh.
"Unfortunately, some kind of rule in this school is restricting me — I can't perform at full power here. My speed's probably been suppressed down to roughly the peak of an ordinary human's limit."
"But!"
Korosensei suddenly puffed out his chest, looking immensely proud.
"Even so, I'm still the greatest assassin in the world!"
"Don't you dare underestimate teacher here, okay."
"Back in my original world, teacher here blasted clean through more than half the moon without breaking a sweat — I'm the 'Enemy of Humanity' set to destroy the Earth this coming March!"
"Nurufufufu~"
Hearing this, Chika Fujiwara beside them went completely blank.
Blasted through the moon? Destroy the Earth...?
What kind of horror-manga setting was this octopus even talking about?!
And that whole 'Assassination Class' thing...
Had Shuchiin Academy — or Neon's high school education in general — evolved to the point where they could put a terrorism-flavored class right out in the open like this?!
Was this really okay?! Weren't the police going to do something about it?!
In truth, some part of Chika Fujiwara had already begun sensing that something was deeply wrong.
She was apparently no longer at Shuchiin Academy at all, and events were barreling forward in some utterly unnameable direction.
But thanks to the self-protective instinct humans fall back on when facing the unknown, she still clung, half-consciously, to the hope that all of this was just some bizarre delusion from a bad night's sleep.
Watching her teeter on the edge, Chris offered a well-timed reassurance.
"You don't need to be too shocked. A lot of people who end up here got half-tricked into it by the school, same as you — none of them expected to run into a life-threatening exam either, at first."
"But you don't need to despair too much, either. It's not that bad."
"After all, only a limited number of people get pulled into each exam."
"As long as you're not born with terrible luck, surviving in one piece before the term's final exam isn't especially hard."
Chika Fujiwara opened her mouth like a fish gasping for air.
With a trembling hand, she raised it weakly and said:
"Um... if I told you I just got lost walking to school this morning and accidentally wandered onto the wrong set... that I have no idea what this 'Black Sphere' is, and no cluewhat you're all talking about is 'death exams' either — would you believe me?"
"C-can I go home first, please..."
Kouenji Rokusuke glanced at her finely tailored Shuchiin uniform, about to say something.
A bright, energetic voice suddenly rang out from behind the group.
"Senpai! Kouenji! Are you two here to check out the new teachers as well?"
Everyone turned toward the voice.
There was Ichinose Honami, walking briskly toward them in the morning light.
A warm, spring-breeze smile on her face, she waved at them.
At the sight, Korosensei extended a tentacle to push up a pair of plain-lens glasses that had appeared on his face at some point, and spoke with mock seriousness.
"If you're here waiting for the other new teachers, I'm afraid you've come far too early."
"As far as I know, whether it's Assassination Class or the newly opened ninjutsu and jujutsu classes, they're all scheduled as after-school activities once the regular afternoon classes wrap up."
"Before class time, we teachers aren't actually required to stay on campus."
"As for me, I simply came early out of pure curiosity about the new environment."
Korosensei paused, an expectant look spreading across his big round face.
"So, is there perhaps a kind-hearted student willing to show Korosensei around this beautiful campus?"
"If you're willing to come along with me, Korosensei can even put in a word with the school to get you an excused 'skip' from class for the duration~"
"That's a rare perk, you know!"
Chris thought it over briefly and nodded in reply.
"Sure. But first, you'll need to tell us in detail—"
"—exactly how you ended up here."
"And also, how did you find out about Gantz's existence, and come to strike a deal with it?"
The smile on Korosensei's face pulled back slightly, his two tentacles twisting together as if caught off guard.
"Oh my? I just dropped a bombshell like that, and you're really not scared of me at all?"
"I really am the dangerous individual who blew away over seventy percent of the moon in my home world, you know!"
Kouenji Rokusuke let out a light laugh and shook his head as he explained.
"Heh, sensei, there's no need for the probing act."
"Every single clean-up target the Black Sphere has ever assigned us has had blood on its hands — never once has it been someone truly good. But your current position is as a 'teacher' it specifically hired."
"As terrible as this rotten sphere is, when it comes to a role responsible for teaching and mentoring, why on earth would it hand us a pure villain to fill it?"
"I've no idea whether what you said about blowing up the moon is true or not, sensei, but we know the Black Sphere's playbook extremely well."
Korosensei seemed genuinely surprised, his two round bean-like eyes blinking.
Then the stripes on his face shifted to the orange that marked delight.
"Looks like Gantz wasn't lying to me."
"You all really are an interesting, sharp bunch of kids!"
"In that case, so as not to waste any more of your precious youth, let me be a bit more honest with you."
Korosensei dropped his flippant tone, his voice dropping a notch.
"My original name was 'The Reaper.' That was the code name the world gave me after I killed exactly a thousand people. But afterward, following an accident, I underwent a live antimatter experiment, and ended up in the form you see before you now."
"That experiment granted me inhuman power, but it also set my life on a countdown. The other test subject who underwent the same modification alongside me... when its natural lifespan ran out, the antimatter inside its body went out of control and blew away seventy percent of the moon."
"If it were me who exploded instead — with a human's body mass, and even more antimatter inside—"
At this, Ichinose Honami's fine brows drew together as she sharply seized on the point.
"So... what you're saying, sensei, is—?"
Korosensei promptly explained.
"You've guessed right."
"My life's countdown will run out this coming March. The explosion it triggers will be enough to utterly destroy the Earth."
"It was right around then that I received Gantz's invitation."
"It told me this place was in a crisis, and that even if my natural end came here, it wouldn't mean true despair for all of you. So I agreed."
"In the time remaining to me, I'll train you all in every assassination skill I've mastered in my lifetime. Until... I'm killed by your own hands."
"So..." Korosensei tapped his own big round head lightly with a tentacle. "I suppose, in the end, I'm also one of the targets you'll eventually have to face. Heh heh."
Faced with the sheer overload of information packed into those few short sentences—
Chris, Kouenji, and Ichinose Honami all exchanged glances.
As for Chika Fujiwara, standing at the very edge of the group—
—she'd gone completely numb by this point.
She had no idea what reaction was even appropriate anymore.
She couldn't shake the feeling she'd wandered onto the wrong set entirely — this was nowhere near her usual genre!
I'm supposed to be in a slice-of-life story, aren't I?!
Seeing this—
Ichinose Honami took a deep breath, forcing herself to process everything she'd just heard.
She composed her expression and walked over to Chika Fujiwara, speaking gently.
"You must be really scared right now."
"If you don't know which class you've been assigned to yet, and if you don't mind, why don't you come with me for now?"
"Our homeroom teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie, left us after the last exam. So our Monday morning assembly is fairly relaxed right now — no one's going to give you a hard time."
Ichinose extended a hand, her eyes sincere. "Once class lets out and I've got a free moment, I'll personally walk you over to the administration office, okay?"
Chika Fujiwara swallowed hard and nodded over and over, like someone grasping at a lifeline.
Some part of her still felt this school was deeply, deeply wrong.
But the Ichinose Honami standing before her looked every bit the gentle, saintly good person.
With no better option in this completely alien situation, Chika Fujiwara decided to trust her instincts as a politician's daughter.
In any case — cling to this angel's leg for dear life first, worry about the rest later!
After that, Korosensei didn't bring up the topic of having Chris and the others show him around campus again.
It was as if his earlier carefree act had all been a deliberate test of their character.
Now that he'd secured the outcome he wanted, he'd already fully slipped into the role of "teacher."
As a conscientious, dutiful teacher, he obviously wasn't about to actually encourage his students to skip class without good reason.
Chris and Kouenji didn't say anything about it.
They simply waited quietly where they stood.
Once Arisu Sakayanagi, Ryuuen, and the others had arrived one by one with their respective classes to welcome the new batch of transfer students—
—Chris stepped forward and gave everyone a brief rundown of the background Korosensei had just revealed, then hurried back to class with the rest of them before the warning bell rang.
That left Korosensei standing alone in the now-empty admissions plaza.
He watched the backs of the busily scattering boys and girls with a look of deep satisfaction on his face.
"What a lively, wonderful bunch of kids..."
A long while later, once the students had all vanished from sight, Korosensei finally turned around and, guided nervously by several school staff members who'd been waiting all this time, began slowly familiarizing himself with the school grounds.
Meanwhile, inside the Class A classroom—
In the last two minutes before class started, Chiaki Matsushita leaned in close to Chris's desk and asked in a lowered voice:
"Chris, I just saw the message you posted in the group chat... that new teacher, Korosensei — he actually said out loud that he's our target to take down?"
Chris nodded.
"That's exactly what he said. Kouenji and Ichinose were both right there watching — they heard it loud and clear."
Suzune Horikita turned around at this point and picked up the thread with her own analysis.
"That's contradictory, though."
"If, by his own account, he's planning to train us up and then let us kill him — and not even hiding it, volunteering the confession outright—"
"—isn't that basically begging to die?"
"So what could possibly have driven him to accept the Black Sphere's invitation and come here as a teacher in the first place?"
Nanase Tsubasa propped her chin on one hand, mulling it over for a moment before speaking.
"Senpai, it's like how you changed because of Senior Chris and finally came to accept yourself. A lot of the time, people change because of certain experiences."
"Just because he started out as an assassin doesn't mean he's always stayed a cold, heartless one. Maybe something he went through during that experiment left him fixated on something."
"When a man is about to die, his words turn kind."
"At the very least, he probably wants to fulfill some wish of his own in the role of 'teacher' before the end comes..."
She hadn't even finished speaking.
A yellow, big round face with that trademark eerie grin suddenly poked in through the classroom's back door!
"Nurufufu~ That's enough chit-chat, everyone!"
"Snap to attention — class is about to officially start!"
Startled by that huge face suddenly shoved right into view, Chiaki Matsushita let out a small yelp.
After a moment of stunned silence, she gave Korosensei an awkward nod and hurried back to her own seat.
Nanase Tsubasa and Suzune Horikita exchanged a glance and, in silent agreement, dropped the topic as well.
Only Chris turned his head toward the octopus at the door, puzzled.
"Korosensei, didn't you say yourself just now that Assassination Class is scheduled for after school in the afternoon?"
Korosensei scratched at his own big round head with a tentacle, looking a little sheepish.
"Nurufufu... well, that's true enough."
"But when I said earlier that I genuinely wanted to tour your school in my free time, that was sincere too, you know."
"Well... after all, this is my first time being a teacher. When it comes to handling students with personalities as vivid as yours, I really do need to gather ideas and learn from the teaching experience of my senior colleagues!"
"Alright, alright, your homeroom teacher's about to walk in. Don't go zoning out on me now."
"These peaceful, ordinary lessons sitting safely in a classroom — every one you attend is one fewer you'll ever get again. Learn to cherish the present, understand~"
"And while I'm at it, I'll be observing and studying your teacher's methods too."
With that, Korosensei extended a tentacle, cupped it gently on either side of Chris's forehead, and without further ado turned his head straight ahead to face the blackboard.
Chris sighed inwardly.
He looked up toward Sae Chabashira, who had already stepped up to the podium.
Just as Sae Chabashira set her lesson notes down on the desk, a glance caught sight of the enormous yellow octopus standing outside the classroom's back door.
Even Chabashira, who had witnessed the Black Sphere exam's brutality firsthand, froze for a moment despite herself.
But her formidable nerve quickly reasserted itself, and she regained her composure.
Chabashira pulled her gaze away, cleared her throat, and spoke coldly.
"Before we start today's lesson, I have an announcement to make."
"I'm sure the well-informed among you already heard about the Revival Round through your own channels last night."
"What I'm about to say concerns exactly that."
Chabashira paused, sweeping her gaze across the room. Seeing everyone holding their breath, not a single interruption, she continued.
"First, Shiranami Chihiro and Ryūji Kanzaki did indeed die on the exam grounds earlier. But now, through the Revival Round arranged by the presiding god, they've been successfully revived..."
"It wasn't an easy process, but for most of you in this class, it's at least a real, tangible sliver of hope."
"Second — and more importantly—"
"Thanks to the efforts of these survivors, you're all now benefiting from the perks they fought tooth and nail to bring back."
"To prepare you for the exam difficulty spiking upward from here on, Gantz has assigned Advanced Nurturing several travelers from other worlds to serve as your combat instructors."
"Some of the higher-tier courses will require you to pay personal S Points as a basic enrollment fee. But! In every one of these extra courses, you'll be free to unleash the abilities you've traded for through the Black Sphere without any restraint! And these live combat trainings won't cost your class any evaluation points — everyone gets to participate."
After that long stretch of talking, Chabashira's throat felt a bit dry.
She picked up her thermos, took a sip of water, paused, and made a show of waiting for questions.
Sure enough.
Soon enough, one of the sharper students raised a hand and asked the question everyone was most curious about.
"Chabashira-sensei, if we accidentally get hurt during these new teachers' combat classes, what happens?"
"Will it be like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, where the system blocks the pain and heals us instantly?"
Quite a few students nodded along and murmured in agreement.
"Right! If it's really like the Black Sphere exam, where you lose an arm or a leg over the slightest thing and don't even get treated... who'd be crazy enough to attend?!"
Chabashira pressed her lips together.
Honestly, this question was outside her own knowledge — she had no confident answer herself.
She'd actually planned to use the moment to invite Korosensei — eavesdropping at the back door — up front to explain it to the students himself.
But when she turned her gaze toward the back door, she found—
—the giant yellow octopus had vanished without a trace, at some point she hadn't even noticed!
Not the faintest hint of him leaving had reached her.
'Just how fast is that monster, exactly?!'
A chill ran through Chabashira, and her mental rating of this new teacher shot up several notches in an instant.
After a moment's hesitation—
—unable to locate the man himself, Chabashira simply reverted to her usual sharp-tongued coldness.
Her gaze swept icily over the student who'd asked the question, and she said:
"These questions — you shouldn't be asking me. You should be asking yourselves."
"Even if the new courses genuinely don't block pain, or even carry a real risk of bloodshed..."
"Are you seriously going to give up a path that could genuinely improve your odds of survival, just because of that?"
Chabashira let out a cold laugh.
"If that's really what's going through your minds, then all I can say is — whether pain gets blocked or not makes no real difference for people like you anyway. Because once you're out on the exam grounds, the monsters certainly won't give you the chance to cry out in pain."
"Sooner or later, you'll die either way."
"Alright, that's the end of the announcement."
"Save whatever nonsense you've got for after class. Now, open your textbooks — class is starting!"
Sitting in the back row, Chris found something quietly funny about Chabashira's put-on coldness, transparently covering for her own embarrassment.
In truth, Korosensei hadn't gone far at all.
After all, he was a being infused with antimatter cells, capable of reaching speeds of Mach 20 — hardly human.
Even with the school's rules suppressing his physical stats across the board, Chris hadn't blocked his sensory perception entirely.
Which was how Korosensei had spotted, at a glance right from the start, that Chris and Kouenji were different from everyone else.
He could, of course, hear Nanase Tsubasa and the others whispering in the classroom too.
Just now... he'd naturally picked up on the fear radiating off Sae Chabashira, unconsciously, from her racing heartbeat the moment she'd spotted him.
As a sensitive soul eager to learn how to become an excellent teacher — an "educator-in-training," so to speak—
—and not wanting to undermine Chabashira's classroom authority, he'd thoughtfully decided to stop lurking outside the door and leave.
But, well, credit where it's due...
The idea of Korosensei wanting to learn how to teach from Sae Chabashira was, in itself, darkly hilarious.
After all, when Chabashira had first learned of the Black Sphere's existence, she'd been exactly the type who loved watching the chaos unfold, all but hoping Class D's collection of "defects" would get weeded out sooner rather than later.
The reason she'd gradually turned into a decent human being since—
—was entirely because Chris had thrown her straight into the exam grounds during the midterm Uninhabited Island exam.
It was that first-hand, bone-deep pain that had taught her how powerless the school's higher-ups truly were in the face of the Black Sphere.
It made her realize that even as a teacher, she couldn't stand apart from the Black Sphere — that she herself could be reduced to expendable material at any moment.
It was under that kind of survival pressure, never knowing what tomorrow might bring, that she'd finally started setting aside her arrogance and trying to cooperate with her students instead...
And besides, setting Chabashira aside entirely—
—it was genuinely hard to point to any other teacher at Advanced Nurturing who qualified as a "model" worth learning from.
You could only say the place was thick with self-styled 'immortals,' each stranger than the last.
Korosensei learning from this crowd...
—wouldn't that just twist the personality he'd worked so hard to develop right back out of shape?
A pure and simple case of leading students astray.
[End of Chapter]
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