Sakuragi and Nagisa walked inside the classroom, talking together. Waving at each other, the two separated to their desks at the opposite sides of the room. Since everyone knew about Sakuragi’s secret, nobody wanted to be near her besides Nagisa, so she sat alone in the back.

When Nagisa looked at Sakuragi sitting by herself in her isolated desk, he felt a pang of sadness.

“Nagisa,” Karma said when he noticed Nagisa staring at Sakuragi. “Why are you still talking to that traitor?”

Nagisa looked up. “Huh? She’s not a traitor.”

Karma clenched his fists. “You don’t remember how she lied to all of us? She doesn’t deserve someone talking to her, let alone someone who’s friends with her.”

Nagisa studied Karma’s face. He’d never seen Karma this worked up about someone before. “You liked her, didn’t you.”

Karma flushed. “What?”

“I’ve never seen you like this before. I thought you were suspicious of her from the beginning.”

Karma clenched his fists harder and raised one up like he was going to hit Nagisa. Nagisa winced, awaiting the blow. Karma let out a sigh, opening his fists and letting his hands fall to his sides.

“I had started trusting her after the school trip. She seemed much more genuine after that. When we found out she was lying to us, I felt betrayed.”

“It seems like I’m not the only one feeling like that. Everyone is angry, but some people had a bigger reaction.”

Nagisa bit his lip. Karma’s right.

“Okuda and Kayano have been in tears every time I’ve seen them. Isogai doesn’t talk at all anymore. Nakamura barely comes to class anymore.” Karma listed, ticking them off on his fingers. “Sakuragi doesn’t even seem like she cares. All she does is sit there reading a book and doing nothing.”

“She does care,” Nagisa said.

Karma scoffed. “Really? How?”

“Last night, she slept over at my house. She cried herself to sleep. Why would she do that if she didn’t care?”

“...” Karma glanced over at Sakuragi. She was staring at the girls talking together a few desks away. She must have felt his stare, so she locked eyes with him. Sakuragi flushed and looked down at her book. “Fine, maybe she does care. But I’m not forgiving her until she does something to make up for what she did.”

Nagisa smiled at him. “That’s a start.” Then he noticed a large black box next to Sakuragi. “What’s that?”

Karma followed his gaze. “Who knows? Maybe it’s the new student Okajima was talking about. But the government wouldn’t be desperate enough to use a machine, right?”

Nagisa gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe…” By then, everyone had heard about the new student and the box, so they all turned to look at it. The box switched on to show a picture of the girl who Okajima showed them on his phone.

The students’ mouths dropped open. Our new classmate is a robot?! They all thought in unison.

“Good morning everyone. My name is Autonomous Fixed Artillery AI System. I will be assisting you in the quest to defeat Koro-sensei.” The girl said in a monotone.

Koro-sensei entered the classroom. “Welcome, everyone! I see that you have met our new student! She will be a vital piece to your operations.”

“The probability of defeating you before graduation is currently 75%. Readying artillery.” The machine whirred, then multiple guns popped out, all shooting at once, spraying the room with bullets. The students covered their ears and ducked. When they looked up. They saw that none of them hit Koro-sensei.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, waggling a tentacle in the air. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

The girl frowned, going silent.

The next class, the same thing happened. At 3-E’s next break, they had to sweep up all the bullets.

“That stupid robot. She doesn’t even help clean up her mess,” A student grumbled.

“Even Sakuragi isn’t this annoying.”

Nagisa’s heart broke at the look on Sakuragi’s face when she heard the comment. He walked over to her. “Hanako-”

“Forget it.” She interrupted. “Nothing more than I deserve.” She moved away to clean a different part of the classroom.

To neither student’s notice, Koro-sensei watched the two worriedly. This needs to resolve itself soon. The new student is manageable, because I’m an amazing teacher, but this is different. Unless a fight breaks out, I’ll just observe.

Terasaka eventually had enough of having to clean up after who everyone called Autonomous-san, so he duct taped the machine so she wouldn’t be able to take out her guns. Since it wasn’t harming her it was allowed. For the first time that day, the students in 3-E were able to concentrate.

I think Autonomous-san will be a good asset if she was more human-like. That human spark to work together and consider other people. Sakuragi didn’t realize she said this aloud until Terasaka turned around and said with a smirk, “Take your own advice, or are you not human, Sakuragi?”

Laughs came from around the room. Sakuragi clenched her fists and stood up, walking out of the room. 

“Guys, stop bullying her! Can’t you see how much it hurts her?!” Nagisa protested.

Rio waved a hand. “As if. Nothing touches that traitor. Besides,” she giggled. “It was pretty funny.”

Nagisa was about to say something else, but Irina came in and started English, so he just looked down, feeling lost about what to do.