Karasuma. Well, this is interesting. Had he recognized him from the fake one on the TV, or was he just assigned the duty since he had known him before? "When is he coming?"
"He's outside the door actually." Yep, regular sanctuarian there. "Do we all like be silent while you talk? Hide like it's surprise birthday, God of Death?"
Yeah right, like he could get them all to settle down? "I'll meet with him, if it's just him." He started to follow the sanctuarian, while also knowing he heard Aguri and Emiko's footsteps too. All together, or nothing at all I guess.
He looked out the door. Yep, it was Karasuma. "Hey, Karasuma. Did you work on all the red balloons yet, it'd probably really help the most."
No, he didn't like the joke. "One broadcast overtook everyone, threatening the entire world of being blown up by 5,000 others just like you," Karasuma said to him. "A second broadcast was much more . . ." He seemed to close up his shirt more, probably blocking a mike or camera. " . . . you."
Yeah, he knew. "Guilty."
Karasuma let go of his shirt again. "You are! What the hell?!" Karasuma yelled at him. He gestured to something on his hand. "How?" He covered his shirt back up again, with constant fumbling, but gestured to his hand again.
Ah, of course they were listening in. He wrapped his tentacle around his hand while Karasuma fluffed his shirt more. He wrapped his tentacles around his shirt too, feeling the wire device. Yep, compress that just right. Uh huh, nice snap. "Sorry, that hurt?"
"I'm fine," Karasuma said, still definitely not fine. That crack on the side probably hurt, and his tentacles were around his hand. "What happened?"
"Oh. I was brought back because my particles were excited," he said plainly. "You know, basic science stuff."
"You are anything but basic," he complained. "Can I come in?"
Ohhh.
"I know you faked those cutouts, Korosensei," he already warned him. "We need to talk, and we should do it where we aren't in the open."
Well, Sanctuary wasn't exactly on a well beaten path, but point accepted. "Okay, hang on." He turned around from the door. "Lola?" He never had to say it too loud, she'd be there.
"Yes, God of Death?"
"Announce we are having a visitor, a friend of mine, so everyone needs to be nice." While he turned around and let Karasuma in, Lola bellowed the news.
"Everyone, Lord Reaper is gracing us with the presence of a guest! Mind all manners and show all appreciation to the great God of Death's worthy friend!"
Karasuma just gave him a look. "Lord Reaper?"
"It's sort of a thing that happens when you come back from the dead," he said. He watched Emiko hold his hand as a human again. "Karasuma's fine, you don't have to change."
"Even little ones like you?" Karasuma asked as he looked all around at everyone.
"They aren't . . ." Well, he was going to say dangerous, but yeah, they were. Mach anything meant danger. "They weren't going to blow up the Earth. On the contrary, we really have been trying to leave," he urged him. "They were quiet and minding their business until Yanagisawa showed back up."
"Yanagisawa? What's he have to do with anything?" Karasuma asked as they continued to walk. "Do the number of you ever stop?"
"Color, color, color, color," Etsuko was muttering from Aguri's hold as he approached closer to her.
"Yukimura Aguri." Yes, of course Karasuma knew her. He had taken over her class. "You aren't dead either." He looked at her baby. "Babysitting in a place like this isn't going to cut it as an excuse. What are you doing here? You were on TV the first time with Korosensei when things clearly weren't good."
"That wasn't me," she said. "It was someone else in a shell."
"Yanagisawa wore a shell of me too," Korosensei told him. "A shell basically makes things of anti matter look like something else. I have shells of me as God of Death. He had shells of me like this and God of Death. He gave shells to an old student of mine that looked like Aguri."
"Then the first broadcast was all disguises." Karasuma picked it up. "Yanagisawa usurped you in this cult role you have going on?"
"Whoah, whoah, whoah," Korosensei corrected him. " . . . well?" Hmm. "I mean technically, some believe one thing, some are nuts, but we all just try to survive together so the outside world doesn't hunt us down." That sounded a little better. He'd save all the other stuff for a little later. "He froze me, Aguri, and one of our eggs for almost seven years."
"Froze you?" Still fluffing, but he couldn't for long.
"Yeah. Time stayed still to us for seven years while he took over with my student acting as Lady Aguri. When we got out, Yanagisawa pulled that broadcast in an act of desperation and revenge."
Karasuma's eyes grew wide at her, then at the baby in Aguri's hands. "You're kiddin' me."
He chuckled nervously. "Yeah, kind of a surprise, huh?"
"You?" Karasuma didn't look like he could utter something back. "How?"
"Eggs and freezing and experimentation, and Sanctuary's not the best? But, they aren't planning on blowing up the Earth?" Hopefully that smoothed it over. "I made the second broadcast to at least get people to think I'm still the only one. Congrats on the new duties, Ministry of Defense. Family too, huh? Mighty important."
"Where's Yanagisawa?" Kurasama said. "I want him, with these shells. Make him you, and your problem is solved. For now."
Ooooh. "Shit."
"What?"
"I just froze him for four years."
"Does he still look like you in the frozen state?"
"Yeah, he has to have really strong pills." Ha! "You really want to take a Yanagisawa popsicle and call it me?"
"Show me this freezing chamber."
Freezing Chamber
"The ground doesn't freeze, just the anti-matter," Korosensei insisted to Karasuma as he actually did put his tentacles to fluff his clothes for him. "Will this work?"
"Maybe," he said. "That video made you look crazy. You could have backfired an experiment and froze yourself. Just, keep your distance from everyone on the outside. I'll take the frozen corpse."
"He'll wake up in four years," Korosensei warned him. "Don't shove him into a museum or something. I don't need him popping up again."
"The government will take it and shoot it into space. That's supposed to be you, and you could destroy the Earth. He won't be thrown into a museum."
Okay, good point.
"Listen." Karasuma looked toward Emiko, Aguri, and Etsuko. "You all need to cooperate with the government, be as polite as you can. It's your best chance of survival when they come."
Damn! Of course it wouldn't be that easy. He was lucky Karasuma helped him destroy the wire taps. "Look? We're really not gonna do anything. They use shells all the time to stay safe, and some of them are like Aguri."
"What's that mean?"
Aguri switched from her human appearance to her octopus appearance. "Yeah. That's how the whole octopus egg thing sort of worked, Sir."
"They can fake being human?" Karasuma rolled his eyes. "Do not let that get out, and no, no one can leave! That is going to be even worse, the whole world will get frightened."
"But we have to-"
"You want to get off Earth. Is that still the priority?"
"Yeah, but that's still a ways away." Korosensei tried to make him see reason. "There's over 5,000 of us, everyone leaves back and forth for food and materials. It's just like a giant hotel."
"That shell on Yanagisawa, it should be good enough to get you out of this stupid mess," Karasuma warned him. "Even if it does thaw and go away before he's blasted off, that would just make the world feel even safer. Everyone would assume it's a Yanagisawa trick, and you are still dead. Find a disguise. But!" He gestured toward Aguri and Emiko. "One person finds out there is another of your kind, without any knowledge or permission or research?"
Then, death. Yeah. They would assume they could all destroy the Earth. "Gotta eat, Karasuma. How are you gonna feed 5,000 of us?" He had to get the point. "They all kept a low profile for seven years. No one knew. No one would believe. That's our only choice."
"We don't make waves," one of the braver ones added. "We don't go far. We stay local. We never use our speed. We never use our full abilities that much. We just want to live."
Oh. Korosensei recognized that brave soul, and the one next to him. The first Sanctuarian he met that proved not all Sanctuarians were bad or crazy. He just wanted to protect his girlfriend and egg.
"We don't threaten. We don't hurt anyone," he pleaded. He presented a little octopus next to him. "This is my little guy. You know? A lot of us have kids. He's all I have left. I can't just trust the government will be nice to my only child. Would you?"
Yes, good track. "None of them were asked to become this," Korosensei said back to Karasuma. "None of us were. Can't you just . . .?" He held his tentacles so tightly. "Let us live, Tadaoki?"
Karasuma wasn't making great eye contact with anyone.
Emiko moved from Korosensei and went toward Karasuma. She courtsied. "My name is Yukimura Emiko. I wasn't raised at Sanctuary, I was raised by my Aunt Lola and Aunt Akari on the outside of Sanctuary. This is my first day visiting. So, we can survive, but it sucks out there. Can you help us Mister Karasuma?"
"Akari? Yukimura Akari?" Karasuma asked them.
"Yes. My Aunt Akari's taught me all about acting, I'm going to grow up to be a great actress like her." Her smile and grace seemed to be fooling Karasuma. No, not fooling, according to Korosensei's research he had a daughter of his own.
She was probably reminding him of his own daughter.
"I know when and where I can become octopussy and when I can't," she said. "It's how I lived. Can you please just help us a little until we are safe again, Mister Sir?"
Karasuma sighed softly, clearly trying to think. "Five thousand. An abandoned town or village might work if it's far enough out."
Oh, good, Emiko's help was working.
"If you get caught, I can't help," he warned them. "It'll just get everyone killed, I lose my job, and then my family gets hurt too."
"I can help too." Chou Chou came closer to him. "Yanagisawa was working on new shells. They last a good five years now. If everyone takes one, they won't be able to break out of it. Even patterned octopus that can change human will stay the shape of human without being able to break out. No weird powers, no nothing."
Ohhhh. I don't know about that. "You know what? As a last resort," Korosensei added. "I'm sure we could pull this off."
"What about if someone visits the ghost town?" Chou Chou asked. "Even if they don't visit, they could be passing through. Can't see cephalopods just crawling around, can they?"
"We have regular shells we use all the time," the brave one said again. "They last several hours. If a Sanctuarian leaves outside their home, a shell takes care of the problem. Same as now."
"This is like a bad dream." Karasuma pointed to Korosensei. He glanced back toward Emiko with some kind of emotion in his eyes, then back at Korosensei again. "You better have a place in mind."
"Of course." He had the same line of thinking before and after everything happened. Sanctuary might not be a sanctuary forever. "Unless something happened to the little ghost town I was thinking of." He watched Karasuma pull out his phone and found out the information. "Nope, still in the middle of nowhere. Nothing fancy. No one wants to tour it, it's drab. No one's going to bug it, most of the houses are falling apart, but we'll be fine."
"This is your only shot, remember that," Karasuma said again. "You need to move everything and everyone out of here without more than one signature of Mach speed." He sighed. "Go as fast as you can responsibly, get everything out of here, and all the residents out while-"
"Game time!" Yes. "Tennis?"
"Tennis," he agreed. "Just this once, and no contacting any of your former students."
"From now on," Korosensei promised, "I won't contact anyone but Akari."
Yeah, he didn't like that. "Who did you make contact with before?"
"Just Nagisa and Akari, and no one else knows," Korosensei promised once again.
"Akari is my sister," Aguri reminded Karasuma.
"Akari was your student Kayano."
"Yep."
"Weird you would change what you called her after a year in class," Karasuma noticed. "How close did you get to her?"
Uh oh, he didn't need Karasuma distrusting him. "I don't know, but I might be her brother someday, so I started calling her that?" Yeah, that was a look shot right back to him.
Karasuma looked back at Aguri, like she would tell him if that was true.
She just shrugged. "I have kids with him. Akari can be determined. Better not to put up a fight with her."
Karasuma just looked back at him. "Forget it, just don't make me kill you. My ass is on the line in this, and not just mine. Just, get everything out quickly while we play tennis."
"Just like old times," he had to note. He had a lot of fun with the government when they all first met. There's a reason Karasuma knew what to do to not attract attention. It was just Korosensei being silly and ridiculous again. "You'll need a handicap in our game, say 100 miles?"
"I don't care, we're just gonna play," he insisted. He pointed at Korosensei. "They'll expect one Mach trail. Don't put the stuff too close to your real new location, they won't know what's going on until after I leave."
"Of course!" Yes! "Thanks, Karasuma."
"Just. Go," he warned him. "Go as fast as you can, but just you."
It had been so long since he felt that freedom. Since he had been brought to life, not once could he feel the freedom of a true sense of speed. He had used it all the time in his first round as Korosensei. That speed was free. Wonderful.
He played tennis while moving every single resident, his family, their things, the scraps for the shuttle, the shuttle they made so far (great progress, fun find) any pictures on the wall, last looks to make sure he didn't miss anything, and then they both kept all the audio clear from static while they slowly made their way to the freezing chamber.
He opened it up, and then made a loud 'aah' sound and then left Karasuma handle the rest. Except before he left, he had to say it. "Thanks for the chance."
"Irina will kill me if she knows I'm putting my career on the line for you," he said. "Or she might have killed me if I didn't. This could have ended worse with everyone scattering and running, I had to be smart."
Yeah. "A lot of good people could die, you know the government would do more than study us. Thank you."
"You said 'let us live, not let them live," Karasuma said as he went toward the freezer. "Then you better all live, I am not going to be the one to break the news to anyone else if you don't." He retrieved the Korosensei-looking popsicle. "Get out, stay away, and do whatever impossible thing you need to do as fast as you can. An abandoned village won't save you forever."
He had done a scattered effect, trying to move everyone within a distance before he'd tell them which way to go themselves. He did the same thing with their things. Slow and steady, they put the puzzle together, until most of them were now in a village that had no name.
It did once, but it was now nameless. No doubt it would probably have a new name.
New Sanctuary.
To Karasuma's Allies now in Sanctuary
Karasuma answered every one of their questions, with answers that sounded spot on, and played with the history of Korosensei before. Why did the wires fail? Korosensei wrapped his tentacles around him almost immediately when he answered the door. Why was there continuous speed back and forth? Korosensei insisted on a game of tennis before he'd talk. He managed to trick him into a freezing chamber that he was going to use on him. "In my opinion, yes, somehow it was God of Death. He had survived somehow. I don't know how, but he's no longer a threat."
Everyone stared at the iced up Korosensei on the camera monitors.
"How do we destroy him?" One of them asked. "If he didn't die the first time, how do we make sure he dies?"
"We need to get the ice off and hit him hard."
Good idea, that should work. It sounded like shells didn't have actual power, so if it was Yanagisawa, there shouldn't be a problem. "Kill him as fast as possible, he's unpredictable."
They pulled vasts amount of fire power that would kill Korosensei, most of it coming from the students that had once tried to assassinate him. They wouldn't mess this up.
"Make sure we pay extra close attention to the freezing chamber, research the solutions used in it. We need to see if they are dangerous to humans, if they could cause him to explode when he thaws, everything."
For now, no one wanted to do anything until they knew exactly everything they were dealing with. For Karasuma? It felt nice to breathe a little easier.
This time, it felt very different than last time. This was five thousand innocent people, including innocent kids? Emiko reminded him a lot of his own daughter. Trying to be cute to get out of trouble. Just like a real little girl.
They were just people wanting to live.