CHAPTER 1 - Assassination April (1)

// 3rd Year Junior High //

[START OF ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM]

A man in a black suit strode in through the door and stopped at the center of the podium. Another two employees in similar attire – one with a gun – followed him inside and stood beside him.

Sitting on the chairs before them were the Class 3-E students of Kunugigaoka Junior High. They were known as the school's misfits since they have failed their grades in the previous year. Because of that, they were transferred to this class in the isolated old building, which was located on top of the mountain one kilometer away from the school's main campus. Since then, they have been suffering from the discrimination and criticisms of everyone in this school.

With every student droning their gazes on their visitors, the man began to introduce himself, "My name is Tadaomi Karasuma. I work for the Ministry of Defense. Please understand that what I am about to say is classified government information."

His stiff expression shifted with caution when a yellow creature had whizzed beside him. The said creature has a cartoonish smile plastered on its face with several tentacles on its body. It was clad in a remarkable black academic dress alongside a small black cap with a yellow tassel and out-of-place large black tie that has an imprint of a yellow crescent-shaped moon.

"Nice to meet you. I'm the one who blew up the moon. I also plan to blow up the earth next year. Since I'll be your homeroom teacher, I look forward to working with you."

Dozens of questions bombarded the minds of every student in Class E. They had already been briefed about this by the school chairman, but that does not mean that they already perfectly understood the current situation – especially after seeing this creature that seemed to be out-of-this-world.

Seriously, couldn't they have some time to butt in with their comments?

Even Karasuma was irked at the octopus-like creature's sudden intrusion and revelation of information without pause. And yet, he opted to not do anything but to proceed.

"Now, cutting straight to the point. I want you to kill this monster," he added.

After giving out further details of the assassination mission, their strange visitors finally exited the premises of the building leaving them to spend the rest of the day normally. For now.

"Ten billion yen..." Rio Nakamura murmured with a smirk. "With that money, I don't need to study anymore!" she blurted.

Yuuma Isogai, who was sitting on the first row diagonally from her, got up from his seat to face the class. As a class representative, he must make sure that his classmates have fully grasped the circumstances of their mission.

"Everyone, our mission to kill is not an easy thing to do. That's why you should properly think about it first before agreeing to this."

***

The rest of the day was spent discussing the pros and cons of the mission assigned to them. Exchanges were held between the students, dividing the class into two opposing sides.

Although there were those who still could not make up their mind. Even Rinka Hayami, known to be aloof and stoic, was still debating over her stance on this. Her blonde classmate was right; the reward money should be enough for them to live by even without going to school. But ending a life in exchange for earth's peace, was it really the right thing to do?

She glanced at the boy erasing the writings on the board – Ryuunosuke Chiba. Like her, he was assigned to class duty today.

They had not talked to each other before save for a few exchanged words that were school-related. All she knew about him was that his eyes were always hidden and that he sat behind Taiga Okajima, her right seatmate.

"Chiba-san," she called out in a mature yet monotone voice.

The black-haired boy looked over his shoulder, revealing long bangs covering half of his face. His gaze settled on her slender upright figure, orange waves hanging on her shoulders, while she wrote the class daily report.

"Are you going to participate in the assassination?" she asked.

He turned back to his task. "Why not? It's not like we have anything better to do," he said as a matter-of-fact.

He has a point. Who knows, the assassination classroom could be a blessing in disguise. They probably might get something out of it besides the cash prize.

But they could only hope. For the better or worse.

"At least we're saving the earth," she said more so to persuade herself.

He hummed in reply.

She has to admit though that she was somewhat looking forward to this mission as well as to their bizarre new homeroom teacher.

'I wonder what happened to our previous homeroom teacher,' she thought.

When they had finished, they went down the mountain together. Side-by-side they trudged the dirt path in silence, wallowing in the rustling of the leaves and the cool air beneath the boundless green shade. Both of them were perfectly fine with the lack of talk, merely conversing through eye contact, pointing, and a few words. And yet they were bothered that maybe the other was feeling awkward in their quiet walk.

They finally reached the school gate. Hayami lifted her hand for a small wave as she said, "Goodbye, Chiba-san."

Chiba gave her a smile. "Yeah. See you tomorrow."

When both had turned around in opposite directions, Hayami began to think that after spending a short time with her taciturn male classmate, maybe, there was another thing that she could look forward to.