Chapter Text
2018
This isn't some Avengers: Civil War scenario, Itona thinks, even as Gakushuu smarmly corrects " Captain America , Civil War" and Itona resists the urge to throw the stress ball in his hands right at Gakushuu's face. There was no whole "the safest hands are still our own… or are they?" debate, because it's unanimously decided that the safest hands are no one's hands, no human should be meddling with the Universe's laws as it is, especially not anyone with any sort of influential power.
"Wait," says Itona loudly, and Gakushuu scowls at him mid-evil cackle. "How do we know this isn't going to cause some end-of-the-world scenario?"
"We don't," Gakushuu says, sounding increasingly irritated for each second he does not slam the hammer onto the time travel causing, reality warping device to smash it to bits, or that could be just Gakushuu's default mood Itona doesn't really know, despite literally going through life and death with the guy.
"Last time we pulled a wire and it sent three of us hurtling through time," Itona reminds him, "now we're thinking of pulling way more wires than that. Who knows what consequences could arise from this?"
"The wire caused a power surge," Gakushuu says, "but the prerequisite to a power surge kickstarting a device would be, say, that the device is functional in the first place. If we smash it-"
"Itona's right," Irina says, crossing her arms, "we should slow down, go through the notes again. You're not usually this rash, Gakushuu, do you still have that concussion?"
"I do not ," Gakushuu protests.
The hammer is taken away from him kicking and screaming, he's forcibly bind to a swivel chair, and they find that yes, indeed, he very much still does have that concussion. And consequently is so drugged up it was a wonder he was let out of the house at all, even if it was to take public transport three stops down to demand more attention than he was already receiving whilst waving a giant hammer at an electronics storefront.
"He probably wasn't," Itona points out.
Irina sighs wearily, the picture of a new parent. "I'll call Gakuhou."
By the time Asano Senior arrives, Gakushuu is already soundly asleep and has no conscious complaints about being bundled off home by his frazzled father, although Itona is sure he'll be receiving pissed off texts once Gakushuu comes to. But after that, Irina says, "I think Gakushuu has a point."
Yes, Itona thinks miserably, doesn't he always.
And much later even after that , after Itona mollifies his new friend with over-the-top promises of lunch treats (which Itona is desperately trying not to refer to as dates in his head), they meet up again in the Asano residence and tries to ignore Gakuhou fretting over his only son's healing wounds, with the time travel device on the coffee table between them.
It seems like a constant between worlds, Gakuhou being endlessly overbearing. Gakuhuu is as disgruntled as he probably can be swaddled in blankets and looks 2 seconds away from spontaneously combusting from heat, embarrassment and rage; most likely all 3.
Gakuhou doesn't buy a single word of their time travel escapades the slightest bit. There's really no other reason believable enough to explain how Gakushuu left Kunugigaoka at 3.30pm on a school tuesday, walked 15 minutes to Itona's electronics repair shop, went in for 10 minutes, then came out drugged up on painkillers and high as a kite with multiple healing bullet wounds and lacerations. Gakuhou had let Gakushuu hug him for an uncomfortable amount of time, taken him to the hospital for a check-up and a standard drug test just to make sure he’s not tripping high on LSD or any other drugs, taken Gakushuu home and patted his hair until he babbled his way into a morphine-induced nap, and only then does he start cursing and accusing Irina of brainwashing, witchcraft or any related disciplines.
To which Irina had replied, ‘I’m flattered, Gakuhou, that you think of me capable of such a feat, but I have as much knowledge with time travel as does literally anyone else you pull from the street. You should ask Gakushuu about that.” And Itona dives for cover.
“So,” Irina starts, a shit-eating grin on her face, and Itona wonders how she had made it this far in life antagonizing powerful people, including but not limited to the best assassin in the world, a super creature capable of destruction of the Earth, and Asano Gakuhou. “Has your son dropped out of his delusions yet?”
“Time travel or reality warping isn’t real,” Gakuhou says loudly.
“It is,” Gakushuu says, or whines . “You were all nice because I saved Ikeda from killing himself so you didn’t go psycho, and I yelled at you and you got all sad because you couldn’t believe that any version of you would treat me the way you did, then we saved Koro-sensei. I think I was dating both Itona and Karma.” Then he hiccups, and giggles.
Gakuhou glares at Itona. Itona, used to the muted glares of alternate-Gakuhou and woefully unprepared for the full force of a post-Ikeda Gakuhou glare, flinches and says, “we were not dating,” then, “but you weren’t dating Karma, either.”
“Yeah we were,” Gakushuu insists, “I called you Itochan, and you called me Shuu.”
Irina is grinning so hard she could give the Joker a run for his money. Gakuhou is vibrating in what is most probably insurmountable, speechless anger.
Quick, conflict diffusion. “You don’t want to date me,” Itona tries.
Drugged up-Gakushuu thinks hard. Sneezes. “Maybe,” he says sleepily.
Itona turns red. ‘What the fuck does maybe mean?”
“It means maybe,” Gakushuu says. Giggles again. “I love you, papa, even if you’re a meanie.”
Gakuhou sighs, as if Gakushuu had just handed him the world’s burdens on a platter. “You’re kind of cute when you’re intoxicated,” he mutters to his son and pats his hair in what can be called a strangely affectionate manner, and Itona thinks he understands their relationship even less. Satisfied, Gakushuu buries his face in his father’s shirt.
“This,” Itona says. He finds the notebook with Koro, Aguri and Gakuhou’s notes in in their attempt to decipher the inner workings of the time travel device, and hands it over. Gakuhou deliberated over it.
“This is my handwriting, and Aguri’s,” he says, frowning, “What the hell is this?”
“It’s supposed to talk about how this works,” Irina pats the top of the device like a dog’s head. ”By the way, what kind of painkillers are you giving him? I’ve never seen one that lasted this long.”
“It’s just morphine,” Gakuhou sighs. “Idiot ran into a wall and fell down the stairs again this morning so I took him back to the hospital.”
“I forgot there were stairs,” Gakushuu says incomprehensibly.
“There were definitely stairs in your alternate universe’s house,” Itona says, “I don’t know why he’s saying that. Anyways, you were one of the only people who figured out how this thing works, to an extent, so we were wondering if you would help us decide the best course of action to dispose of it.”
“Smash it,” Gakushuu says emphatically.
“I don’t have to know how this works to know that’s a bad idea,” Gakuhou says. “Why don’t you go up to your room and take a nap?”
“Nap,” Gakushuu agrees. He immediately passes out.
Gakuhou rubs the bridge of his nose. "Maybe we should discuss this later."
"Right," Irina says, "we will see you, then." She cracks a grin at Gakushuu snuffling into Gakuhou's shirt, Itona shrugs and pushes the little notebook towards Gakuhou who takes it with a wary expression, and they take their leave.
"So," Irina says, "want to come see my baby?"
"Oh hell yeah," Itona says, "what's her name?"
"Mai," Irina beams so brightly Itona swears there are sparkles. Motherhood really did make her glow. They don't even make it to the busstop nearby when Irina's phone starts beeping bloody murder.
"Yes?" Irina says, and mouths "It's the Asano's" slowly, and Itona shrugs because he can't read lips.
"What?" Says Irina, "oh, fuck ." Hangs up, says, "ready for another adventure, Itona?"
"Oh hell no," says Itona.
"Hell ye- wait, you're right, hell fucking no," says Irina.
"Hi," Gakuhou? greets the moment Irina and Itona step in again to the Asano residence, sounding far more amicable than the Gakuhou they so very know which is giving Itona the creeps, "Irina, Itona, it's so nice to see you again, well, sort of. The circumstances could be better."
"Tell me you have a way to fix this," Irina demands immediately. Wait, what?
"I barely know how this works," Gakuhou? insists, holding the stupid thingadong up, "where are the notes?"
"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?" Itona says.
"A classic case of switcheroo," Irina says dramatically, "classic assassin trick, really, or well in this case, our beloved Gakuhou messed with that fuckatron and switched the places of himself and his kiddo with the duo from Koro-is-alive timeline we are so very intimately familiar with. Except, as it seems, they only switched, uh, minds, instead of physical selves."
"What," Itona says, "the fuck."
"That pretty much sums it up," Irina agrees.
“So,” Itona says, “let me get this straight (for the benefit of our readers who can’t follow Irina’s weird speech), the versions of Gakuhou and Gakushuu from that alternate universe we saved Koro-sensei in, switched places with our versions?”
“Yes,” Irina says.
"Wait," Itona says, furrowing his brows, "then where's the alternate Gakushuu?"
Somewhere upstairs in the house there's a muffled thump, a yelp, and the very unmistakable series of sound of someone tumbling down the stairs. They whip around in time to see Gakushuu, or alternate-Gakushuu, roll off the last step and faceplant onto the carpet.
"I feel like my brain is mashed potato," alternate-Gakushuu says nonsensically, "I forgot there were stairs."
"He's on morphine," Itona explains, trying to hide a laugh just on principle, and also because he's about 98% sure that if he did laugh, alternate-Gakushuu would rat him out and actual-Gakushuu would slowly murder him. "We actually returned from your time 2 days ago. Well, the morphine was because apparently he tripped and fell down the stairs again this morning."
"I know what morphine feels like," alternate-Gakushuu gurgles, still face-down on the floor, "this isn't it. I think I can taste colours and smell shapes."
There's a long pause of mostly the befuddled and confused type, and then Irina finally says, "I guess that means Gakuhou believes us now."