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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 2 years

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Yuu can do it!

What if all three Yuus (from the novel, manga, and game) were sent to the same world?

Part 8

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In Grim’s defense, he was left unsupervised.

‘What about Kuroki?’, you may be asking. Well, Kuroki… was also left unsupervised.

‘What about Ito and Enma?’ Yeah… no.

Really, Crowley should have expected something to happen when he sent out three teenagers to be janitors.

Of course, it had started out pretty civil.

Enma and Ito had looked at each other with identical exasperated expressions before getting back to work. And, to be fair, Kuroki had expected Enma’s attention to wane the moment the conversation stopped being interesting to him… but he had thought Ito, at least, would stand up for Grim. Except they didn’t, only bothering to shoot Ace a dirty look before grabbing the power washer they had been trying to figure out for the past hour and starting to mash buttons again.

“Pft! I can’t bear it anymore!” Ace laughed openly at them, leaning back against the statue of the Queen of Hearts and crossing his arms over his chest. “You guys are the ones who went crazy at the entrance ceremony, huh? What’re you still doing here after that? What, did you do too much property damage and now you gotta pay it off? Pathetic!”

“What did you just say?”

The way Grim puffed up was accentuated by the sound of Ito finally figuring out how to turn on the power washer. They gasped a little at harsh blast of water that came from the tool, their eyes lighting up, and then began spraying down the stones at their feet. It was much faster than scrubbing by hand, they were very pleased by this new development.

“You don’t even know who the Great Seven are,” Ace continued to taunt, reaching back to rap his knuckles against the stone rose bushes gathered around the Queen of Heart’s feet. “It’s no surprise you didn’t get into NRC, I mean you couldn’t have even passed kindergarten if you’re that ignorant.”

Enma hummed a little, tipping his head to the side as if making a note of that to look it up later.

There was something dangerous in the cat-like slant of Grim’s eyes, and Kuroki would have been stupid not to notice the fight that was brewing… but, hey, he was a firm believer in the idea that you shouldn’t dish unless you can take – unless your name is Kuroki Yuuya, then it’s totally fine.

(Besides, he may have been a little pissed at Ace as well. Sure, he wasn’t going to go around getting in unnecessary fights – especially when he was at a clear disadvantage, what with his lack of magic – but he understood where Grim was coming from… and, admittedly, he might have been in a bad mood. Getting sent to another world without warning only to nearly get murdered several times in one night, sleep in the world’s most uncomfortable bed, have nightmares about how none of your old classmates will care that you’re gone, and then being forced to wake up early for a terrible janitorial job… well, it tends to be a lot to deal with for the average person. Forgive him for being a little bitter.)

Grim began to make a low growling noise in the back of his throat.

Ace either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “I thought I’d just mess with you a bit, but you really blew my expectations out of the water –.”

He nearly fell over when Ito hit him with their pressure washer. It wasn’t a long blast, and it had been on the lightest setting to make sure that it didn’t hurt, but it was more than enough to thoroughly soak the student.

“What the –?!”

“Ah! Sorry!” Ito said, sounding genuinely apologetic as they stepped forward until they were just barely standing in front of Kuroki… but their eyes flashed strangely in the light as they scratched the back of their neck ‘sheepishly’. “For a second there I thought I saw some grime on the statue!”

Enma leaned against his broom, expression perfectly bored. “I don’t blame you, Ito-san, it’s an easy mistake to make.”

“You –!”

Even Kuroki had to join in from where he was half-hiding behind Ito:

He gasped and snapped his fingers as if he had just gotten an idea. “Don’t worry, I know just how to make it up to you! Hey, Grim-chan, you think you can dry him off for us?”

“Gladly,” said Grim. Blue flames flickered to life in his throat and he sent a blast of fire towards Ace that he barely dodged.

“Hey! Watch out! You could have hit me!”

Kuroki snickered. “Don’t worry, Ace-chan, we’ll do better next time.”

It was funny, really. You could see the exact moment Ace realized he had severely misjudged the situation.

“I’m going to light up that fire-head of yours!” Declared Grim.

All traces of the amusement from earlier had disappeared from Ace’s face as he pulled a pen topped with a brilliant ruby from his chest pocket. “You’ve really got guts to try and fight me. I’m going to turn you into taxidermy, you dumb raccoon!”

The three humans watched on calmly as Ace and Grim fought. Maybe they would have put more effort in but, really, they probably would have gotten in the way more than anything. Besides, Ace was only using wind magic to direct the flames away from himself, so it wasn’t like they were all that concerned about Grim getting hurt.

(They did take turns spraying at Ace with the power washer when he got too close, though. Sometimes this was because he had actually gotten hit by a fireball and, surprisingly, they didn’t want him to die… but mostly it was just for funsies.)

But, apparently, Grim getting hurt shouldn’t have been their priority, they should have been paying more attention to their surroundings.

Because one of the fireballs Ace directed away from himself hit the Queen of Hearts’ statue in its too-smug face.

Enma’s hand flew to his mouth. Kuroki stared, wide-eyed at the statue. Ito made a squeaking sound in the back of their throat.

The two people fighting didn’t even seem to notice until they realized it had been too long since any of the humans had done anything. They followed their shocked gazes to the statue and went still.

It was very quiet for a good minute.

And then Kuroki was gathering Grim into his arms and Ito and Enma were grabbing their supplies and they were all sprinting away at top speed. Maybe they could act like they had been late and had just found the statue that way or something –?

“Whip of love!”

Well, that hope didn’t last long at all.

The four residents of Ramshackle dorm (the living ones… or, at least, they were alive for now, maybe they would join the ghosts that night) were dragged literally kicking and screaming back to the scene of the crime.

“Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit –,” Ace hissed, frantically trying to rub away some of the char with his sleeve.

Grim didn’t know when to be quiet. “This is all your fault! You should have just let me fry you!”

“Who would just let you – you –!” Ace realized who was talking and turned around to glare at Grim, only to find the Headmaster there as well.

And the Headmaster was… well, not happy. The lights in his eyes had winked out again as he looked down at the troublesome group before him. The tendrils of his Whip of love had already sept away, but they were held firmly in place by something else.

Ace, apparently, did know when it was time to shut up. His mouth closed so quickly that his teeth made a loud clicking noise.

Kuroki’s grip tightened on Grim.

“The five of you… you all caused trouble during orientation, and now you’ve charred one of the Great Seven’s statues! You seem pretty eager to be expelled.”

Kuroki very much wanted to argue that they hadn’t chosen to get in trouble during orientation, but he figured now wasn’t the time.

Enma was quick to kneel into a seiza, because he’s a suckup and a nerd. “Sorry, Headmaster. Please don’t kick us out, we have nowhere else to go.”

… okay, maybe Enma was right. (But he was still a suckup and a nerd.) Kuroki dropped into a seiza as well and, after some insistent tugging on a very confused Ito, they mimicked the position that their dormmates were in.

Ace seemed to get the hint, dropping to his knees. But, it seemed that, even now, he couldn’t help himself from being a little cheeky, as he pressed his hands together in an overexaggerated pleading gesture. “Don’t expel us, please, anything but that!”

“My goodness… you, what is your grade and name?”

Ace’s head tipped forward exhaustedly and he sighed. “Ace Trappola. First year.”

“Causing this much trouble on your first day…” Crowley shook his head slowly. “But, I suppose, it wouldn’t do to expel you all this soon… right, the five of you will be tasked with cleaning 100 windows around campus.”

“Eh?! Me too?” Ace said, eyes wide with genuine shock. He gestured at the Ramshackle residents. “I was defending myself! They were trying to kill me!”

“Nah. Talk sh–...” Grim’s eyes flicked to the Headmaster. “... I mean… talk crap, get slapped? Besides, you’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Silence!” Crowley snapped. “You five will meet in the cafeteria after school for your punishment, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!”

Apparently, despite the fact that Ace had agreed, it wasn’t clear.

They had waited a while. After all, it was a cafeteria. The four of them were more than happy to fill their plates after an entire day of cleaning. Enma looked up at the chandelier hanging above them with interest, his head resting in his hands as he watched the way the lights glimmered with a pale yellow light. Ito skimmed a book on dimension travel, absently swirling what was left of their coke bottle as they read. Kuroki leaned back against them, stroking a purring Grim on his lap and starting to nod off…

Enma clicked his tongue. “He’s not showing.”

“Oh, yeah, he definitely bailed on us,” Ito said absently, turning the page.

Kuroki’s eyes snapped open and he blinked several times to get his mind working again. “Should we go find him?”

“I mean… it’s only five more windows each,” Ito said slowly.

Grim sat up suddenly and Kuroki flinched. He hadn’t thought that the monster was awake. There went their free will.

As if to confirm this thought, Grim jumped off of Kuroki’s lap and rested his hands on where he would have had hips if he were a human. “I’m not gonna let him get away with putting all the work on us! C’mon, henchmen! Let’s catch that Ace and make him do all of the window-cleaning!”

And then the monster was dashing away before any of them could protest.

Ito sighed deeply and closed their book with a snap.

They probably would have exerted less effort if they had just let Ace run off, to be honest. But, hey, they had committed… apparently.

Enma had quickly gotten tired of Kuroki slowing them down – he swears that he used to be better at physical exercise, guys, it was just a bad week for him… or something – and had thrown him over a shoulder so they could have an easier time keeping up with Grim.

Kuroki sighed, propping his arm on Enma’s shoulder and resting his head on his hand to save himself from an aching stomach.

But it was all for naught. They burst into the classroom that a random third year with a diamond on his cheek said they should check if they were looking for Ace, only to find it empty.

Grim huffed, sending a tiny puff of smoke into the air. “There’s nobody here?!”

“No, I’m here,” said…

Kuroki turned his head every which way and found that he couldn’t find where the voice had come from. Unless one of his dormmates had randomly had a huge voice change, it seemed that the voice had come from no one at all.

“Over here.”

Enma (and, by extension, Kuroki) turned to follow the voice, only to find a portrait of a man with a large top hat and an even larger nose… of course, the contents of the portrait weren’t all that interesting when the portrait was talking to them.

Ito murmured something under their breath, Kuroki only caught the words “Potter knockoff”, before they pulled a smile to their face and waved at the portrait. “Hi, sir! We’re looking for someone, could you please help us?”

“The portrait is talking,” said Grim, who had apparently finally processed this.

“Yes, and?” The portrait asked. “I have a mouth, it is only natural that I possess the ability to speak, no?”

Enma smiled weakly. “Uh, back where we’re from, portraits don’t normally speak. Sorry for staring.”

“That’s quite alright, lad,” the portrait said, their lips pulling into a slight smile. “It simply seems that our definitions of ‘normal’ differ. For the record, everyone here can speak, including the Lady on the wall over there and the Gentleman beside me.”

The other two portraits in the room smiled. Only one of them had an arm, though, so only the woman could wave.

Kuroki tried for a smile.

“That aside,” the first portrait said, attention turning back to Ito. “You said you were looking for someone?”

“Mhmm! His name is Ace Trappola,” Ito said. “He’s got… a heart over one of his eyes and this red hair that kinda looks like fire.”

“Ah, one of the freshmen that started today, yes?”

Grim nodded. “He’s skipping out on a punishment!”

“That simply won’t do!” The Lady in a nearby portrait said, looking aghast as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth politely. “I believe I heard him mention that he was going to be heading back to his dormitory.”

Ito hesitated. “Thank you, but where is that?”

“The inner part of the East Wing. It’s a room full of mirrors, you can’t miss it,” said the portrait of the Gentleman.

“Thanks!” Said Grim, already sprinting out the door.

Enma, though, was completely still. His eyes had fixated on the portraits on the wall with the same look he had given the ghosts the night before and oh no they’ll never leave at this rate. Kuroki gently rapped his knuckles on the side of Enma’s had to try and startle him from his stupor.

When that didn’t work, Ito groaned softly and began tugging on Enma’s arm to get him moving. “C’mon. We can come back tomorrow and you can ask questions then, okay? Let’s catch Ace.”

Enma blinked himself back to proper consciousness and, while he seemed a little put out, he allowed Ito to drag him out once he had thanked the portraits for their help.

And then they were running again.

They barely managed to catch sight of Ace in time. He was walking towards a mirror decorated with what looked like playing cards, his hands laced behind his head lazily.

“Hey! You!” Grim yelled.

“Eh?!” Ace turned around, looking irritated, only for his eyes to widen as he recognized the group barreling down the hall after him. “Shit!”

“Stop right there!”

Ace scoffed and turned back around to run. “Really, who would stop just because you told me to?”

A boy with dark blue hair and a spade symbol over his right eye stepped out of the mirror – which, for the record, weird – but Kuroki couldn’t think too much about that at the moment.

“Hey! Can you catch him?” He begged, because he didn’t know if they could follow Ace through the portal when they didn’t have magic and Enma looked about ready to run straight at it, and Kuroki did not need to check off ‘running into a mirror headfirst’ to his bucket list (Ito already had that covered for the lot of them, thanks). “He’s trying to skip out on a punishment!”

Those seemed to be the magic words when it came to getting help in this place, because the blue-haired boy gasped.

Ace pushed past him as he drew his pen.

“Um… um… what do I…?!”

“Do something!” Ito yelled.

“Anything!” Agreed Grim.

“Right! Right! Anything! Um…!” He pointed his pen at Ace’s retreating back. “Come out… literally anything! Something heavy!”

Ace was promptly flattened by a cauldron.

~~~

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