#because idiots

If it were up to Anakin, he would never return to Oklahoma.

His mom is gone, his step brother never liked him anyway, his team is—

But when Padme surprised him with plane tickets, calling it an engagement gift and squealing about how excited she was to see where he grew up— Anakin couldn’t find a good enough excuse to say no.

Now, staring at a familiar caravan of ramshackle vehicles on the side of the road, Anakin thinks maybe he should have told her the truth.

Because the truth is, if it were up to Anakin, he never would have left Oklahoma in the first place.

If it had been up to Anakin he would be in the back of that beat up bus searching for the next big storm.

If it were up to Anakin he would never have walked away from the two things he loved more than anything.

But it hadn’t been up to Anakin.

No, Obi-Wan took that choice away.

“It’s an incredible opportunity, Anakin, think of what you could do at a school like that.”

“But I belong here, chasing storms.”

[even then he hadn’t been able to say “I belong with you, Obi-Wan.” Even now he doesn’t think it would have changed anything.]

“I can’t make you go. But I won’t let you back on this team until you come back here with a degree.”

Anakin hates him.

So JC spends more time with the Nie's, sees up close NMJ's progression. And he's more skeptical by nature than NHS, so he sees his friend change after his brother's death. He pays back the favor and doesn't allow NHS to play the fool with him, he knows him too well at this point. So they start to put the pieces together side by side.

He's still angry, and hurt, and mourning, so it takes a while to accept the new information about his brother. But once he does, there's no turning back. Because of course WWX would give him his core. Of course he would sacrifice everything for him, just like JC sacrificed himself too. Of course the Twin Heros of Yunmeng were both idiots for eachother.

So, there's 2 ways this can go. MXY still sacrifices himself and brings back WWX, but this time the first meeting with his brother goes completely different. If he knew about it, there's no way the sacrifice wouldn't be done in Lotus Pier, so that his brother would come back to life in his own home. If he didn't know about it, he would probably let him leave wirh LWJ so that he can maintain his cover, but they would definitely have a different conversation in Qinghe. Either way, there would be way more hugs and tears.

Or. He doesn't let MXY do it. He takes him back to Lotus Pier, because the guy is a wreck. And then he makes him help with the summoning, but this time JC is the sacrifice. If we go with the novel, WWX comes back in JC's body, which is arguably better for exposing the truth and keeping YnumengJiang united, but awkward as fuck for WangXian. If we go with the show, then it just turned up 10000x nore complicated. Because now JC is dead and WWX is back, and as far as the cultivation world knows the Yiling Laozhu came back from the dead to completely annihilate everyone, and he started with the sect that took him in, the sect that saved his life, so this obviously means that they should prepare for the worst.

Huh? Weird request…. But okay. I wasn’t sure what else to write than this though, sorry.

Guest-starring Kuwata weirdly enough, because I’ve never had interest in writing him before but whatever, I guess.

35. “You look like a monkey who’s been strategically shaved.”

“Oh, Komaeda-kun…”

“Yeah,” Komaeda says incredibly cheerfully. “I know.”

“It doesn’t look…” Naegi trailed off, grimacing, trying to come up with a good description. “Um….”

“Dude, you look like a monkey who’s been strategically shaved,” Kuwata stated bluntly to the point Naegi nearly squealed.

“K-Kuwata-kun…!”

“What?” he shot back. “He does.”

“He’s right, I absolutely do!” Komaeda exclaimed. Cheerfully. “I have to admit though, I’m impressed with this result! Kimura-san’s chemicals are really something else! As are Saionji-san’s pranks!”

Naegi’s grimace looked even more pained at that.

“Anyway, I was thinking of getting a haircut either way,” Komaeda went on. “This is a good opportunity for me. Well, then, I’ll be seeing you two.”

“See…you….” Naegi and Kuwata both waved as he walked away, pulling up his hood as he did. Naegi couldn’t help but flinch as Kuwata whistled between his teeth.

“Well,” he said. “You like short hair on a guy, right Naegi?”