Chapter Text
Koro knew the Finals results were more than academic achievement - they were the undermining of a decade long ideology forged in blood. Something in Principal Asano broke that day, and he quite literally uprooted everything he ever stood for in his past, with a bulldozer to his satellite classroom up on the hill.
Koro hears about the debacle in the 3-A classroom after the man left - hitting his son across the room. But he ruminated over it for a while and then made the executive decision to let things play out by themselves. He saw a little bit of himself in Gakuhou, after all, and he found it fittingly poetic that they were the antitheses of each other, like the universe had forged their meeting to be so. Koro himself had undergone such a drastic change he couldn't see who he once was in the mirror (hah!) and he liked to place the benefit of the doubt in people, as he started to learn to do with his 3-E children, so he placed trust in Gakuhou to right his wrongs as well, to go home and repair his relationships and morality.
He didn't expect Gakuhou Asano to go home and kill his son. How could he have? How could anyone?
Koro finds out like this: a phone call from Karasuma, voice uncertain and shakily still, that Koro flies over from the other side of the world immediately. He passes the yellow tape over the Asano estate (the ambulance, the neighbours, the police car sirens) and goes to the 3-E classroom.
Karasuma finds out like this: a phone call from Sonokawa, uncharacteristically frantic, words slurring together. "Come to the office," she blabbers, "something- there has- something happened-"
The neighbours find out like this: the Asano boy stalks up to his front gate that day, eyes red rimmed and a bandage on his face. He takes three tries to unlock the front door. Two hours later the father's car pulls up in the driveway. Then there is shouting. (There is always shouting, so you turn up the sound of the television and close the blinds, and after an hour or two the shouting goes away, and sometimes you see the Asano boy limp out the front door to go take the bus. You watch him from the blinds to make sure he does not fall over.) That day the shouting stops and you peek through your blinds… and you hear a gunshot, loud and decisive, cracking through the noise of your television. You see three of your other neighbours, also watching for the Asano boy, open their doors. You grab your phone and call the cops.
Bang, goes the gun.
The world finds out like this: the 9pm news on the local television - a murder suicide.
3-E finds out like this: a text message from Isogai, 9:02pm at night, asking everyone to all tune in to the news channel (trigger warning), and one by one each member of class 3-E checks their messages, turns on the television, and grows silent.
Kunugigaoka finds out like this: Sakakibara Ren sobbing on the front steps of the school, head buried in his hands. 3-A staring at the empty table and empty chair in the middle of the classroom until someone drapes a jacket over it; until someone starts crying; until they push the chair in. The secretary wringing her hands nervously, watching the door to the Principal’s as if she expects it to open at any time. The nurse taking out the bandages and putting them back again, looking over her student records, wondering if she should have said something; the security guards replaying the tapes, (smack, goes the Asano boy against the end of the classroom wall,) wondering if they should have called someone. A shaky announcement through the school speakers, a quiet assembly, (even 3-E does not know what to say and no one says anything to them).
3-E finds out like this: Asano Gakushuu running into the school hall, wide-eyed and crying and completely see-through.
"You all see me, don't you," the Asano boy says, that's a ghost , wiping away the tears with the back of his sleeve. He's in casual home-wear, and Tadaomi knows that the shirt is what the Asano boy died in.
And his students are all standing stock still, frozen in fear from when the Asano boy ran up to their terrified gazes, and it is probably their assassin training that keeps them from startling.
For all of a solid form that the Asano boy didn't have, he did have the outline of one. Isogai had made a sharp whimper when Asano got closer to him, so Asano jumped back, and stood awkwardly in the side of the hall with no one else but 3-E staring at him. He has his arms wrapped around himself and he turns to the stage, the stage where someone is talking about him and his death , and the poor boy flinches.
That's a ghost.
Abruptly Irina pushes herself off the wall and turns around, and Tadaomi didn't see if she had done something to beckon him but the Asano boy hurries after her.
Tadaomi looks to the front of the line. Isogai is crying now, and Maehara has an arm around him, but he too is wiping at his eyes.
The octopus himself is frantically looking between his class, like he wants to quickly bundle them up and hug them, and the direction that Irina and the Asano boy went in.
When the assembly ends and 3-E practically rushes up the hill. Koro-sensei plucks them all off the ground and sets everyone down in the class. Irina and Asano are there, and Ritsu is online as well on her screen, looking nervously between the both of them.
"That's a ghost," Ritsu says.
In the light of the classroom Asano almost looks solid. His shirt flutters in an imaginary breeze, the hem riding up to reveal splotches of dark skin. The marks on his face and neck are deep purple, and his eyes are glittering.
Some of the students turn around and heave into their hands.
Asano quickly tucks his shirt in, and pulls his arms around himself.
"You're a ghost," Tadaomi says.
Asano shifts uncomfortably.
"I told him everything," Irina says.
Tadaomi almost says something, but what would be the point? Who would they be keeping this secret from?
"This is the secret of class 3-E?" Asano says, and he sounds exactly as he did when he was alive, his voice edging into something hysterical. He looks like he's about to cry - no, he already is, the tears are barely visible. "Of all the-"
"Gakushuu," Irina says, sharply.
Asano whips around to glare at her. "I'm dead!"
Irina looks pained. "I know,-"
"I'm dead! I died! I died for this!-" And Asano throws a hand out to gesture at 3-E and no one dares to say anything, "he told me he'd rather bring this secret to his fucking grave than let me win!-"
And then Asano drops to his knees and starts sobbing.
It's instinct that Tadaomi gets down next to him, and it's instinct that Tadaomi reaches a hand out for comfort - he's not very good at comforting, but he's been working with children for a year now. The moment Tadaomi moves his hand, he regrets it because Asano is a ghost. Which makes it all the more surprising when Tadaomi feels Asano's solid back.
Asano looks just as surprised as he is, that he lifts his head.
He doesn't feel like much. He's not cold but not warm either - he's simply just there. Something that feels solid and not quite at the same time.
"I'm sorry," Tadaomi says, because what else do you say in a situation like this? What is he supposed to do? And he is sorry, the thing is, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to apologize for and yet he feels like he should apologize for everything, because-
"Asano!"
Tadaomi recognizes that voice anywhere.
The younger Asano starts screaming.
Tadaomi pulls Asa- Gakushuu. He pulls Gakushuu towards him and tucks him under his chin. The boy is screaming, crying,
and for all that the students are taught to be assassins they're also taught to never actually kill, and yet they all have their guns drawn, uncertainly, because they're aiming at another ghost.
Gakuhou Asano has the audacity to look inconvenienced .
"3-E," Gakuhou says.
"What are you doing here," Tadaomi snaps.
Gakuhou narrows his eyes. "In case you have not noticed, there isn't much where else I could go."
Gakushuu has stopped screaming now, but he peeks out of Tadaomi's shirt with large wet eyes. A shaking hand curls up in the lapels of Tadaomi's jacket.
All Tadaomi can do is bundle the kid closer to him.
Gakuhou looks at Tadaomi with unreadable eyes - they're still violet, translucent, somehow shiny and dull at the same time. Now he's looking at Gakushuu.
"Asano," Gakuhou says, sharp.
Gakushuu lets out a whine.
"Perhaps," and Koro-Sensei stands tall now, standing between Tadaomi and Gakushuu, and Gakuhou. The back of his head is dark, as it always gets when Koro-Sensei is angry.
"You should make your leave."
"Ah, octopus," Gakuhou says, "move."
The temperature in the area - an open classroom - drops.
"You have no authority here," Koro-Sensei's voice booms, and in Tadaomi's arms Gakushuu is shaking, his eyes squeezed shut. Irina is kneeling next to them, cooing something in another language, stroking Gakushuu’s hair with an unnaturally steady hand.
"Leave," Koro-Sensei says. "Do you think you have any right to speak, not after you murdered your s-"
"He killed me," Gakuhou interjects.
Koro-Sensei stills.
Gakuhou says, loudly, "isn't that right, Gakushuu?"
Gakushuu doesn't say anything.
"Shot me with a gun," Gakuhou continues. "I bled to death afterwards. I hadn’t expected it-”
"Stop it," Tadaomi snaps this time. "Dare you say you don't deserve it?!"
There's a much longer pause, and Tadaomi still has his back turned, he does not know if Koro-Sensei moves or if Gakuhou moves, but Irina reaches to cover Gakushuu's eyes.
"Well," Gakuhou finally says. "I suppose I did."
"Leave," Koro-Sensei repeats.
"Where'd you get a gun?"
"Irina!" Karasuma hisses.
"What?" Irina says. "He's dead."
"I stole it out of my f- his desk drawer." Asano - junior - sniffles, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
"How did he have a gun?"
"Irina!" Karasuma hisses, again.
Irina shoots him a dirty look.
Koro looks at them, then turns to look at where Asano Senior had gone. He's turned back on his heel to walk out the classroom door, and from the window he can see him head down the hill. Then Koro turns to his students, all varying degrees of shaken, and he says, "sit down, class."
Asano junior - Gakushuu, stands up.
"Why don't you take that empty seat next to Karma?" Koro says, and he watches Karma's expression flicker to something terrified, before he knits it into a pursed heavy stare.
Gakushuu fidgets, and makes no move.
"Come on," Karma says, and he pulls out the chair next to him. "Sit down, huh? You standing up is making us feel… awkward."
Gakushuu walks over and sits. It startles everyone to see how… solid, he is, despite the circumstances. He touches the chair and fidgets in it and bumps the table as if he had a corporeal body, but Koro can see the backdrop of the chair and the classroom wall straight through his transparent form.
Gakushuu puts his hands behind his neck. No, he's covering up the splotches of bruises there, that show up like a darkened part of his skin.
It doesn't really work.
The class looks at Koro for direction, but for the first time in a long time he doesn't have any contingencies for this.
"I-if I may," Ritsu speaks up then, her avatar flickering nervously. "I seem to have found the cause for this, ah, affliction."
"What is it, Ritsu?" Koro prompts.
"There's a, uh, high level of antimatter radiation here," she says. "Since Koro-Sensei is made of a dense construct of antimatter, he radiates it frequently. In fact, all of us have some level of antimatter radiation - not to worry, though! It's showing no adverse effects to your health and should dissipate normally once the source is gone. Um. So… Gakushuu-chan here and his f- the Principal are exhibiting equally abnormal high levels of radiation too. Asano less so just now, before Koro-Sensei arrived."
"So you're saying," Koro says, "I'm the reason we can see them?"
"I saw their bodies," Irina says, (Tadaomi shushes her, Gakushuu hunches down lower into himself). "They're definitely dead."
Ritsu nods. "Looks like they have some, um. Spirits are said to exhibit electromagnetic forces. A reaction with the antimatter might have turned them corporeal."
"Why just them?" Karasuma says. "Out of anybody in the world?"
"Principal Asano, because of his proximity to this class, might have enough radiation to stick with him when he, uh, died. And he was with Asano at the time, so it might have affected him too."
"How do we," Karasuma starts, but then falls silent.
"You can say it," Asano speaks up, and he's leaning back on the chair now, finger tapping at his chin. He looks deep in thought, and he looks like he has marginally relaxed while thinking. He looks up and it's almost like he's human now, spending more time in Koro's presence is giving him a more solid form.
"How do we solve this problem?" Asano says, and Karasuma winces, likely having wanted to avoid calling Asano a problem to his face. But Asano doesn't seem bothered by it. He continues, "from what you've said, it looks like this is an issue that will solve itself over time. I'll distance myself from all of you and lose antimatter radiation, and eventually I'll no longer be here to bother you."
The longest silence stretches over the classroom, and finally Isogai says, "that's horrible."
Asano laughs, sharp and shaky and bitter. "Is it?!"
"Yes," Karma snaps at him. "We are not g- this isn't a- we- argh!" He collapses in his chair, sighing frustratedly.
Asano frowns, and his hands drop from his neck.
"W-what Karma means to say," Kataoka speaks up, eyes flitting nervously between Asano and her classmates. "We are not going to, um… ask you to leave."
Terasaka, who's been staring stock still at Asano for the past few minutes (everyone else is as well), spits out in stilted words like he's trying not to say them, "it's not fair."
There's a silence.
"It's not," Koro-Sensei agrees.
Asano swallows uncomfortably, and his hands fly up to his neck again-
"D-do you want to change!" Kanzaki jumps out of her chair, eyes wide.
Karma is next to stand up, and immediately strips off his black cardigan to toss it over.
Asano's eyes widen in surprise, as with the rest of the class, but it's Bitch-Sensei who catches on first and says, "oh sweetie, let's get you out of those clothes! You died in them, that's not very nice."
"I have another set of the school uniform!"
"Do you want my cardigan as well?"
"I have a, um!-"
"Not the school uniforms, please," Asano says.
The class quietens.
"I have an extra set of our tactical combat uniforms if you'd like," Karasuma-Sensei says. "They come with a hood."
"Yes please."
Asano seems reluctant to stand up but he does, and he hurries after Karasuma-Sensei to another room. Karma's cardigan pulled around his shoulders is a stark opaque object against his translucent form. On the other hand, Karma without his signature accessory look odd.
Asano returns in the full outfit, looking a little embarrassed. Ghosts shouldn't be able to blush but he sure looks like he is. The outfit is a little bulky with all the protective padding and still ill-fitting because it's made for someone slightly larger, but it will do until they get alternatives.
"I've found something else!" Ritsu says, breaking the silence.
"These aren't exactly, um, substantial sources," Ritsu titters, her avatar wringing her hands together. "I looked into what you shared with me just now, Bitch-Sensei-" that must have been before they returned from the assembly "-and there are some solutions on dealing with the supernatural!"
Irina raises an eyebrow. "What are they?"
Tadaomi frowns at her. "You have sources on supernatural dealings?"
"Yeah, who doesn't?" She says. Her eyes flick to Koro-Sensei. "It helps to cover my bases."
Gakushuu covers his mouth with his hand, but you can still see his small grin through it.
"What's so funny, kiddo?" She says, and walks over to ruffle Gakushuu's hair.
"I've also fielded your contacts, Gakushuu-chan," Ritsu says brightly. "Asami hasn't gotten back to me yet, though."
"So many people send condolences to your email," Irina snorts, and ruffles Gakushuu's hair again. "Who's going to read it?"
"You're poking through his email?" Tadaomi says, affronted. That's evidence!
"Relax," Irina says. "Just a little bit. We wanted to get in touch with a couple of people."
"Who?" Tadaomi demands. Like sending an email through a dead person's account wouldn't be suspicious at all?
"Gakushuu-chan's ghost buster friends!" Irina chirps.
What?
"They're not…" Gakushuu starts, then sighs, but his eyes twinkle with mirth and he glances at Koro-Sensei as well. "I covered my bases."
It's Nakamura's turn to laugh, a little uncomfortable and a little amused. "You thought Koro-Sensei was a ghost?"
Gakushuu narrows his eyes, playfully. "I have contacts with aliens as well."
Irina laughs, and then she winks at him, like there's another inside joke there. Then she straightens up and nods to Ritsu. "What can you tell us?"
"R-right!" Ritsu salutes. "The concept of the afterlife, how to move there after purgatory, um, Gakushuu and the ex-Principal aren't in purgatory in the traditional sense - assuming that purgatory as a secondary stage exists because we don't have evidence for it now, but we can say for certain that they are in a stage of limbo between death and the afterlife. This is all theoretical, so unless someone else dies within Koro-Sensei's vicinity for, um, other observable subjects, we only have this to work with. It might be an angle for experimentation, we need a control test, and, um, statistically there should be a considerable density of, ghosts, that exist in the world because of how many people that die."
"Gakushuu-chan has not seen any other ghosts around, which either mean that there is a, um, which means that either the antimatter radiation or another factor somehow makes him an exception - possibly moving him to another plane of existence closer to life so he can interact with us, but isolating him from death. But if we look back to several months ago when Koro-Sensei was in constant proximity of the scientists that worked on him but no such similar aftereffects were observed, so it could be a case where the antimatter radiation was simply not enough or that there is another thing holding Gakushuu-chan here. The former, while cannot be empirically proven, is, um, unlikely because the scientists who worked with antimatter radiation should be more immersed in the radiation than Gakushuu-chan. So the latter hypothesis, um, traditionally - back to purgatory, ghosts remaining on the mortal plane after death would mean that there is some sort of unfinished business."
"Unfinished business," Gakushuu says, thoughtfully, and he doesn't seem aware of how his hands drift back up to his neck.
“What sort of unfinished business do you have, Asano?” Koro-Sensei says.
Gakushuu hesitates. “I don’t know.”
“Then what unfinished business do you think your f- the principal has?”
Gakushuu looks down on the ground.
“Does it matter!” Karma yells. “Why are we thinking about that bastard anyways!”
“The both of us are here together…” Gakushuu mumbles. “I didn’t see him. When I woke up, I was in the morgue. I don’t know where he was.”
Irina says abruptly, “is there going to be a funeral?”
“Jelavic!” Tadaomi scolds.
But Asano perks up. He looks curious. “Is there?”
“Ah… hm... “ Tadaomi frowns. “Protocol would indicate that we contact your relatives-”
“There aren’t any,” Asano says.
“...I see,” Tadaomi looks uncertainly at… anywhere but Gakushuu. The kid is staring at him, but Tadaomi doesn’t have any real answers for him. “The state should arrange something on your behalf, in this case…”
“For the both of them?”
“Jelavic! I… I don’t know.”
The class is silent for a while. The students shuffle uncomfortably.
“Asano-kun,” Koro-Sensei says, gently. “What would you like to do?”
Gakushuu… doesn’t know.
He didn’t know what happened. He had woken up on a table and fell out of his own body. He sat on the floor and stared at it - stared at the way his fingers lay limp, dangling off the side of the table. He’d screamed when someone walked in, and screamed again when they stepped through him - he’d staggered out, and straight into a crowd of people, and fell through them like he didn’t exist. Then he went to a mirror and saw half of himself. He ran all the way home, and stopped right at the yellow caution tape… then ran the way to Kunugigaoka, and crashed into the hall as they were announcing his death.
He didn’t run out of breath the whole way, nor did he run into anyone else who seemed like they saw him. He could have run into Father… but that could have also been his own reflection in the car windows.
He’s dead.
He’s dead .
“I don’t know,” Gakushuu sobs.
3-E look distinctly uncomfortable. Koro-Sensei lays a tentacle very carefully on his shoulder.
“We should take a bit of a break,” Karasuma-Sensei suggests.
“You should write your bucket list,” says Irina-Sensei.
Karasuma shoots her a nasty look.
Intended Fic outline:
Gakushuu and Gakuhou both die (the OG idea is to have them kill each other in a freak accident lmao) but turn into ghosts because of some antimatter mechanic i'll figure out. Gakuhou turns into a ghost because he spends a lot of time with Korosensei. Gakushuu turns into one because of the secondhand exposure.
Only 3E (+Karasuma, Irina and Korosensei of course) can see them because they are also exposed to antimatter etc etc.
Through investigation they find out that to move on to the afterlife, the two have to fulfil their unfinished business (classic ghost business.) 3E tries to help them.
When korosensei dies, the lingering effects of the antimatter starts fading and the pair's presence grows weaker so there's a greater urgency to help them fulfil it.
Gakushuu absolutely refuses to say what his last wish is.
Gakuhou reveals that his unfinished business is just to make his son happy (lmao) (alternatively, to hear that Gakushuu loves him). Gakushuu is just so resigned that he says he's happy/he loves him and it works. (less so because Shuu is actually happy (he isn't), but more so because Hou is just so desperate to want to think he's not a failure of a father that he just latches onto any last bit of validation.)
Meanwhile time ticks for Gakushuu and everyone is afraid that he'll vanish from sight forever, not having moved on. 3E try desperately to get him to be happy as well, and miss all the marks.
Shuu finally reveals that his last wish is to believe that Gakubou actually cared about him.
Going through old photo albums, ghost therapy, trying to talk about it - nothing works, because Gakushuu's already fallen into acceptance that his father never loved him (in the same way that Gakuhou's denial helped him). He grows dimmer as everyone tries to convince him.
Finally Gakushuu admits that maybe he doesn't need to care about what Gakuhou ever thought of him, because 3E obviously care about him with how much they help him. He's so faint now that you almost can't see him. He says that 3-E love and acceptance is enough for him.
The next day, he vanishes.
It's unclear whether he managed to finally move on, or if the last bits of antimatter finally dissipated into nothingness and left him a silent, wandering ghost forever.
We never find out.