Chapter Text
“What’s there to talk about, anyway?” Ito asked, eventually, lifting their head just enough to see Kuroki and Enma. They both looked like wrecks. Ito, detachedly, hoped that they looked at least a little less moody than they did – and, if they had to look sad, then they hoped that they were, at least, artfully so. “We’re dead, does that really warrant a whole conversation?”
“... didn’t think I’d get this far, honestly,” Kuroki admitted, his tone close to humorous, but just barely missing the mark. “How’re you feeling?”
Ito raised an eyebrow at him. “Take a guess.”
He winced. “Fair.”
Enma heaved a sigh, and then flopped back on the bed. “We should talk about what we know.”
Oh, great, we’re dead and he wants to make another notebook, Ito thought.
It was a petty thought, but forgive them for not being in the mood to be kind right now.
“The potions the Headmaster gave us are probably Mana Potions,” said Enma. “Ghosts here need mana to keep going, right? That’s why the ghosts that live here need to eat. And excess mana was what made Grim… reincarnate – or whatever – as a direbeast. So, if we assume they’re beings made of mana, mana is probably what repairs them.”
A leap of logic, for sure, but Ito wasn’t really intent on arguing the point. It explained why Malleus using magic had inadvertently healed them, too – the excess mana in the air must have been potent enough to affect them. And it might just explain Grim's whole eating rocks thing, if ghosts were drawn to and empowered by mana...
Still…
“Aren’t they hard to make? ‘Cause the Headmaster made the ‘health potions’ within, like, an hour,” said Ito.
Kuroki waved them off. “They’re hard to make because mana is volatile. You put too much of it into a potion, it explodes in your face. They can be made in an hour, theoretically, but most people don’t… also, it, maybe, shaves years off of mages’ lives? Research is inconclusive, but since beings with more mana live longer than those that don’t… it’s the running theory, at least.”
Ito tilted their head to the side. They weren’t particularly good at Alchemy, but they were good at making things blow up in their face, so they could absolutely testify to the fact that too much mana in a potion was Bad.
As for taking years off of a mage’s life… well, that was interesting, they supposed, but hey. Ito had died young. It’s not like it's hard to do.
“But I like to think we’re, like, robots or something,” said Kuroki. “That’d be cool.”
Ito snorted. “If we’re robots, then we’re shitty ones. Robots shouldn’t bleed.”
“They do if the person who ‘made’ us was determined to make us as realistic as possible,” Enma said.
“If we were made at all,” said Ito. “Depending on what ‘the dead’ are like in our universes, we might have just been dragged here.”
“... didn’t you think we were in Hell?” Enma asked, narrowing his eyes at them.
“Don’t think Hell would have allowed Kuroki to have character development,” said Ito, lifting their hands in a vague shrug. “I’m adaptable.”
“... thanks?” said Kuroki, sounding like he was trying very hard to figure out whether he should be offended by that sentence or not.
Fear not, Kuroki, for Enma always has the ability to say things you find upsetting:
“It could be Grim’s fault,” said Enma, hesitantly. “That we’re here.”
Kuroki’s mouth dropped open.
“Not, like, purposefully,” said Enma, already holding his hands up in surrender. “But we’re all his familiars, right? What if that just – yanked us here?"
Ito shook their head. “If that were it, then there’d be more of us ‘Yuus’. We all – left during different years, right? If we were all from 2020, like Enma, I’d say maybe it was Grim’s fault, but… I dunno, I can’t think of any reason why the three of us in particular would have ended up here on accident.”
“Who do you think it is, then?”
“The most likely culprits are: the demons, Sam-san, and the Headmaster,” said Ito, crossing one leg over the other idly. “The demons and Sam-san have a connection to the afterlife, and the Headmaster is the only person who benefits from us being here. Personally, I suspect the Headmaster, but we should be open to considering other people, too.”
“It could be a random sadist, too, don’t forget –,” Kuroki started, only to pause. His head jerked around to look at them. “Wait, what? You suspect the Headmaster? Is that why you’re cozying up to the guy?”
“Yeah, obviously,” Ito said, rolling their eyes. “If he brought us here, he can probably send us back.”
Not that that particular plan was working. At this rate, they feared that the Headmaster might just become more determined to keep them. It was unfortunate, really, that faeries were known to steal children. If they had known that ahead of time, they would have tried a different strategy. But it was too late to switch up now…
There was a beat of silence as Kuroki considered this.
And then he sighed. “So, um… what’s… there’s no delicate way to put this. Why can’t you move on?”
Ito’s lips pressed into a thin line. Soothed themself with the knowledge that Kuroki was only really asking Ito what their unfinished business was out of courtesy. They hadn’t been particularly subtle about it, after all.
“I… can’t bring myself to just leave them behind.”
Ito had, for as long as they could remember, taken care of their younger siblings. They had cooked, they had cleaned. They taught the younger ones to read and write. They held them after their nightmares, they learned first aid, they learned to shoot a gun just in case it ever became necessary. They had been prepared to join their parents in the world of politics solely so their younger siblings could choose the career paths that they actually wanted. Hell, they had been prepared to accept an arranged marriage, if it ever came up.
The idea of simply leaving them after all of that was… well, they couldn’t just accept it.
They cleared their throat. “Kuroki?”
“Oh, I… wanted to make an impression, I guess? I knew that I’d turn into a Poltergeist and all… I dunno, I just wanted to be remembered.”
“Kuroki…” said Enma.
He lifted an arm toward Kuroki, who made a face. But joined him on the bed, pressing his face into his shoulder. Enma wrapped an arm around him, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.
Kuroki flushed and poked Enma in the side. “So? What’s your whole thing?”
Enma seemed to think it over for a moment.
And then he shrugged. “Mine’s kinda lame, compared to you twos’... I just wanted to see more of the world before I went.”
Bullshit, thought Ito.
They threw one of their shoes at him, nailing him in the shin. Enma pouted.
“That’s messed up. I’m calling CPS.”
“You’re older than me,” they said, narrowing their eyes at him.
“... I’ll report it as elder abuse, then.”
Ito snickered and walked over to join them on the bed.
They were silent, for just a moment.
“We’re all keeping shit from each other, huh?” said Ito.
Enma and Kuroki both hummed in the affirmative.
“Same old, same old,” said Kuroki. “I didn’t get that much character development.”
“Can’t beat you if I tell you everything,” said Enma.
Ito snickered, closing their eyes.
~
Ito felt something warm settle against their foot.
They nudged it, just once, and heard Grim give a sleepy little whine.
They, thoughtlessly, shoved their foot under their normal footwarmer, and Grim curled up on top of them, purring lightly.
They settled back down to sleep.
~
Two days ago, Ito’s biggest concern was making sure that a school festival was up to code. Yesterday, Ito’s biggest concern was that they were fucking dead. Today, Ito’s biggest concern is making sure that everyone moved out without any major incidents.
It was a little funny, in a morbid sort of way. Life was just like that, they supposed.
Well, at least Ito was adaptable.
“Whose toothbrush is this?” Ito asked, holding the offending tool above their head.
“Shit! Mine!” Epel said, running over to grab it.
Vil sent Epel an exasperated look. “Epel.”
“Aw, c’mon, we don’t got a VDC anymore, let me swear,” Epel said.
Vil sighed, before shaking his head. “Didn’t you just finish a character arc about this exact thing?”
“I’m relapsing,” said Epel, flashing a thumbs-up.
“Didn’t you have a whole ‘character arc’ about how your rigidity is doing more harm than good, senpai?” said Ace.
“I can use Double Down on you, again, in case you forgot,” said Deuce.
Ace’s eyes rolled back in his head. “You’re never letting that go, are you?”
“You’re just jealous,” Deuce sang.
Ace scoffed. “I’m not even going to bother coming up with a retort for that.”
"Can't think of one, more like," said Epel.
As always Ace and Deuce devolved into bickering.
Ito had long since learned to tune them out.
Enma groaned from somewhere in the room. “Why do you have so much stuff, senpai?”
“I assure you that I only brought the essentials!” said Rook.
“There’s a random leaf in here.”
“It is a very nice leaf,” said Rook.
“I'm pretty sure a caterpillar got to it. It's full of holes.”
“Ah, but there is beauty in imperfection, is there not?”
Enma scowled. “I got your things down the stairs safely. This is your problem, now.”
Rook lifted his luggage up and out the door with wind magic.
Enma looked beyond offended as he realized that Rook could have done that the entire time, and instead chose to watch him suffer.
Ito gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder.
Enma gave an overdramatic, entirely fake sob, before throwing all of his weight onto them.
They groaned. "Get off, you're heavy."
"Oh noooo, gravity, it's increasing, I'm so sad I can barely stay standing, heeeeelp," Enma drawled, while attempting to flatten them.
Ito gave up and let the both of them flop to the ground.
"Happy, now?" said Ito.
Enma grinned. "Very."
Ito considered whether they cared that hair-pulling was against the rules in a catfight. And whether it counted as a catfight when, technically, they weren't girls, just gays...
Kuroki's voice pitched upwards, and their attention was quickly stolen by the need to make sure that disaster hadn't struck in the two seconds they'd looked away for.
It was just Kuroki's usual anxiety (thankfully?). He worried his lip as Kalim looked through the makeshift cookbook he had thrown together. Most of the recipes were Ito’s, so you could argue that it was provided by them, but they weren't really intent on stealing his thunder. And Kuroki had worked to give Kalim actual, measurable amounts, because, apparently, ‘a little bit’ wasn’t measurable. He was picky like that.
But, to be fair, Kalim didn’t know the definition of the word ‘moderation’, so maybe Kuroki had a point there.
“Please don’t, like, die while you make this stuff, though, because Viper-senpai would assassinate me in retaliation, and I don't want to deal with that.”
“Thanks for doing this,” said Kalim, patting Kuroki on the head.
Kuroki flushed bright red and mumbled about how ohhhh, it’s fine, it didn’t take that long, I just needed to repay you. This was all a lie, but Ito wasn’t going to call him on it. Not when he was only just starting to make friends. Baby steps.
Ito felt Jamil nudge them in the side with his foot. He had, as one might expect, already safely brought all of his and Kalim's luggage back to Scarabia. All that was left was making sure Kalim didn’t somehow get himself killed on the walk back.
“Aren’t you supposed to be coming back to the dorm with us?”
“Are you willing to drag me back kicking and screaming?” Ito asked.
“... I’d prefer not to.”
Ito shrugged. “Then I suggest not trying it.”
“You three are getting worse.”
“Kuroki’s made a whole friend outside of us,” said Ito, raising an eyebrow. “And Enma has that… whatever it is with Jade Leech-senpai. That’s progress.”
“The Headmaster said it would only be until the place was fixed up, anyway,” said Enma.
“That is a willful misinterpretation of what he said –.”
“Hey, Ito!” Ace called.
Ito and Enma were quick to leave a very tired Jamil behind.
“Can I stay here for the night?”
“As long as you promise Rosehearts-senpai won’t get mad at us, sure” said Ito. They’d shrug, but Enma's arm was currently around their shoulder and he was heavy.
“You only ever ask them for permission to stay, other people live here, too,” said Grim, his eyes narrowing at Ace.
“Yeah, but you other people would probably say no.”
~
Somehow, Ace’s choice to sleep over for the night turned into all of the first years having an impromptu sleepover. Epel, loudly, informed Vil that he wasn’t interested in lugging all of his stuff back to Pomefiore, and that, really, Vil owed him for helping save his life, so just Let Him Have This. Deuce was quick to chime in and say that he needed to make sure Ace didn’t pull any stunts while there.
Jack, though, was a surprise.
Ito raised an eyebrow at him. “Thought you hated staying here. 'Cause it's a death trap, or whatever.”
“I was hungry,” said Jack, glancing to the side, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Missed your cooking.”
Hm, thought Ito.
“I didn’t know you were capable of complimenting someone,” said Grim, squinting at him suspiciously.
“Look who’s talking,” said Epel.
“You trying to butter them up? Because I’m making sure they put mushrooms in the food,” said Kuroki.
“I don’t think you’re in charge of that,” said Jack, though he seemed very unsure.
Ito grinned. “I already said I’d make Kuroki’s favorite foods today, so I'm making… I dunno. Ramen?”
Kuroki nodded. “I want every type of mushroom that you can think of in it.”
“Why?” said Jack.
Ito flashed a thumbs-up. “Don’t know how many that is, but sure.”
Jack sent them an offended look. As if they wouldn’t make him a separate bowl. Really, you’d think that, after a few months, Jack would learn to have some kind of faith in them…
(… cooking-wise. They had yet to purposefully give him anything he didn’t like, and had no intentions of doing so in the future. It was smart not to trust Ito in any other areas, though.)
“You’re not gonna make our favorite foods, too?” Ace said, batting his eyelashes.
“Nah.”
“Man… favoritism…”
“Make an omelette for Deuce,” said Kuroki.
Ace’s eyebrows raised.
“‘Kay, sure, I guess,” said Ito.
Ace was offended, now, too.
“Get fucked,” said Kuroki.
“Why’s it always me?”
“You tried to bully us for the crime of being janitors on the first day of school,” said Enma, lifting his hands in a lazy shrug.
“There’s no way you’re still mad about that.”
“Ace, I think we all know the three of them are perfectly capable of holding a grudge for that long,” said Deuce.
Ace didn’t have a retort.
“Looking down on the lower classes is wrong, Ace,” Kuroki chided.
Ace looked at the sky. “Sevens, give me strength, so I can kill them.”
The Sevens did not do so, nor would he have been able to kill them if they tried. So, Ito headed off toward the kitchen, perfectly unharmed.
~
Epel poked his head in.
“I can cook, if you’re not feeling up to it!” he said.
Ito raised an eyebrow at him.
The sunny smile faded, slightly, turning a hair nervous.
“... I’m not bad at it, promise!”
They remained utterly unimpressed.
Epel wilted under their gaze. “Damn, sorry for tryin’ to be helpful, I fuckin’ guess.”
Deuce clapped him on the back. “Everyone has to learn that lesson the hard way.”
“Don’t take it personal, even I’m not allowed to cook,” said Enma.
“That’s ‘cause you nearly burned the place down the last time you tried,” said Grim.
Enma flushed. “That – was implied.”
Grim nodded along, slowly, as if he was taking this ‘lesson’ to heart.
“It wasn’t,” said Kuroki. “He’s just embarrassed.”
“Ohhhh. Don’t worry, henchman,” said Grim, patting Enma on the head a few times. “You are still a valued minion, even if you can’t cook.”
Enma looked to be getting even more embarrassed, now.
~
“Do you think we’d die if we just… stopped eating?” said Enma, poking at an enoki mushroom idly.
“Yes,” said Ito.
Enma pouted. “You didn’t even pretend to think about it.”
“I’m not going to starve myself for a science experiment, Enma,” they said.
(Kuroki set a handful of minced garlic in front of them. They squinted at the pile, and then quietly handed him another two cloves. Kuroki just sighed and, apparently, decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with them. Because he knew they were correct, of course. It’s not like there was such a thing as too much garlic, anyway.)
“... what about you, Kuro –?” Enma said.
“No thanks,” said Kuroki. “Starving to death sounds painful.”
“Aw… but you can't have a valid scientific experiment without at least two subjects…” Enma said, pouting, his chin in his hands.
Ito set down their knife solely so they could flick him in the forehead. “You said it yourself – even ghosts live on mana. You need to eat to survive.”
“Well, they have spite, too…” Enma said.
Ito’s eyebrows knitted. “What’s spite got to do with it?”
“... you don’t know about moving on,” said Kuroki, his eyes widening in realization. “Shit, I knew I was forgetting something – uh, ghosts have their goal, right? So, if you complete it, you get to move on… I’ve – uh – never been that spiritual, but I’m pretty sure that that’s how it works.”
“And moving on is… what, going to… the Afterlife, Part 2, Electric Boogaloo?” Ito asked.
Kuroki shrugged. “Depends on what you believe, I guess.”
Ito mulled this over.
It didn’t seem particularly fair. Ito was stuck in an entirely different dimension, how were they supposed to help their family from here? And, even if they got back to their world, they wouldn’t really get to move on, would they? Helping their family navigate their lives wasn’t a quick thing, after all…
Of course, that was assuming that they could move on. They might still be beholden to the rules of their old world. And they had never heard of the dead moving on before. That sounded like a copout, of sorts.
Well. Whatever. They shouldn't let this distract them.
They sighed, poking Enma in the side. “If ghosts are spite and mana incarnate, and you give up on eating food, I don’t think you’d have either.”
“... you really don’t want me to go without food,” said Enma.
“Nope. I will shove food down your throat if I have to.”
“Awww, you love me!”
Ito grabbed a wooden spoon solely so they could have something to hit him over the head with.
~
As always, the freshmen were playing Poker.
Epel had, apparently, learned to sit this game out. Which was lame, but smart… for now, at least. They’d peer pressure him into playing with them again eventually. Maybe they’d even let him win a little, just to give him some false hope.
Jack, who had been won over by this exact strategy not-so-long-ago, was the first to abandon them. He said that this was because he had an early bedtime. Everyone knew it was really just because he had blown through his savings already.
Deuce was next. He had trudged off toward his room, far poorer than he had been an hour prior, grumbling about how he should have quit when Jack did.
And then it had been Grim’s bedtime, and Enma and Kuroki had gone along with their darling monster without much fuss:
“No midnight snacks,” said Kuroki.
Ito lifted their hands up in mock surrender. “Fine. If I get hungry, I guess I’ll just sit in it or whatever.”
“Good,” said Enma, nodding once.
Ito snickered. “I’ll just be… a little while longer.”
Kuroki gave them a slightly suspicious look, but allowed Grim to drag him off to bed.
Enma lingered for just a moment longer, raising an eyebrow at them.
They blew a kiss his way. “Go to bed. You’ve got, like, laps to run in the morning, or whatever. Good luck with Jack.”
Enma flashed a grin, walking over to press an actual kiss to their forehead, and then heading up after Kuroki.
Which left Ace and Ito. They played a few more rounds, but they weren't really putting any effort into winning anymore. Games consisted, largely, of idly throwing the same wad of thaumarks out over and over while they waited for the other to break the silence that had settled over them. In the way that smoke settles at the top of a house during a fire – thick, heavy, uncomfortable, and becoming more and more of a problem the longer they ignored it.
Considering Ito was, apparently, a being that subsisted largely on spite, it shouldn’t be surprising to find that they won this little standoff:
“Alright, fess up. What's wrong?” said Ace. His hands never paused in shuffling the card deck, but he kept his eyes firmly on their face. Probably looking for some kind of tell.
He wouldn’t find one, Ito had known that the first years suspected something. They doubted anyone would be fooled by the impromptu sleepover excuse. Not even Grim had seemed wholly convinced.
So, no, their face didn’t twitch.
They could simply lie their way out of this, and the first years would move on to questioning Enma and Kuroki in the morning.
Ito cast a lazy, sidelong glance toward the stairs. Absently wondering whether there were nosy, but concerned, friends hiding amongst the shadows.
Were Jack, Epel, and Deuce actually asleep?
Did it really matter?
“What gave us away?” Ito asked, leaning back on their hands.
Ace raised an eyebrow at them, briefly, as if surprised they had agreed so easily. And then he flashed a grin. “You didn’t make fun of us nearly enough.”
Ito’s head tipped back in a groan. Right. Of course. They should have been focusing on the, frankly, embarrassing children’s song that their friends had been forced to perform yesterday. The fact that they hadn’t suggested that there was something else on their minds.
“So?” said Ace.
“Careful, Ace, people are going to think you care,” Ito said.
Ace gave them a particularly unimpressed look.
They worried their lip.
“If nothing else, just please tell me you three aren’t fighting again. I don’t think I’m strong enough to go through that again,” Ace deadpanned.
“We're entirely on the same page right now, trust me.”
“... what, are you combining into some kind of SuperYuu? Because I think I’d prefer if you guys were fighting.”
Ito snickered.
They watched Ace play with his cards.
And then they sighed. “Hey, Ace, do you think that I can ever go back home?”
Ace looked at them for a minute, his expression inscrutable.
Ito watched his hands come to a stop.
The answer, they knew, was no. They had been here for months and they only had three theories as to who had brought them here. Assuming that Kuroki wasn’t right and the person who had brought them here wasn’t just some rando who wanted to see people suffer. Assuming that it was even a person at all, and not some freak glitch.
There just wasn’t a viable way to study what was going on with them. Enma would try, they were sure, the whole would we die if we didn’t eat thing was only the beginning. But they were just three kids with no medical equipment, or scientific experience, or even a plan. What could they do, really?
Even if they did, somehow, force their consciousness back into their old bodies, would Ito simply wake up in a coffin? Would they suffocate and die a second time? What would happen then? Would they move on, or would they be brought back here, or get sent to some third, strange world?
It was a bunch of unknowns, a bunch of risks, and Ito didn't know where to start.
Which left Ito where?
Here, apparently.
Ace sighed and, with an almost cartoonish amount of reluctance, dragged them into a hug.
They sniffled. “I’m gonna – get mocos all over your shirt.”
“You already are. It’s gross,” Ace informed them.
They drew back, rubbing their nose. “Sorry…”
“That was a joke, oh my Sevens,” Ace groaned. “This is a tee I got at the school store for, like, twenty thaumarks, I can burn it later, no problem.”
Ito gave a wet little laugh. “Then I’m going to blow my nose in it.”
“... don’t push it.”
Despite the harsh words, Ace didn’t pull away.