The Perfect Time to Help Out

Out in the woods, Korosensei is shaving ice hauled from the North Pole for a snow cone when a cluster of students jogs up wearing friendly smiles and asking to share. In a blink he disarms the knives they draw and points out that their grins looked strained. As he lifted the blades, he swapped in tulips the class had spent weeks growing, then promises to replant what he uprooted. Megu and Yada scold him over how to bury the bulbs properly.

Watching the display, Nagisa starts a notebook of his teacher's flaws, logging the first entry: the octopus fumbles whenever he shows off. Elsewhere, Karasuma arranges to take over physical education so he can keep watch on Korosensei and back up the students.

Walking the halls, Karasuma senses the sharp divide between Class 3-E and the rest of the campus. The principal frames the students' safety and schooling as his priority, though Karasuma privately notes the man is simply being paid to let the Ministry of Defense run its operation. Overhearing two pupils dread being demoted to Class E, he grasps how the principal weaponizes shame to push the other students to study harder.

Up the mountain, the class has strung Korosensei to a branch like a pinata and jabs at him with anti-sensei blades lashed to poles, yet cannot connect. When Nagisa realizes the show-off moment has arrived, the branch snaps and drops the teacher, confirming that first weakness. Two more surface in short order: he panics easily, tangling himself in the rope and begging for a break, and he is a sore loser, piling on double homework after a taunt before rocketing away at Mach speed. In a separate room, a briefer tells the recently suspended Karma about the creature, the harmless rubber knife, and the vow of secrecy, and Karma admits how long he has itched to kill a teacher.

Serialized on July 14, 2012, this nineteen-page chapter opens the first collected volume and carries the Japanese title Sabisu no jikan. It sits between No Time to Strike Out and Time to Get Down to Work, and it plants two threads that run through the series: Nagisa's weakness ledger and the impending arrival of Karma Akabane.