Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Three Houses, all rights to the owners.

Ideas come slowly for this story now, but I'm still getting more. It's getting harder to not fall back on old material though, and I've noticed this story is straying towards other things rather than pure comedy. Mercedes is partially responsible for that of course, but also a growing reliance on actual game material and plot rather than random jokes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, just something I've noticed.

The grey-haired boy will sadly admit he's gotten used to the Professor appearing out of nowhere, or speaking from directly behind him without any sign of his approach.

So when he suddenly hears the man say "Ashe" from directly behind him, he doesn't jump or yelp. He takes a sudden breath, but that's the extent of his surprise. He turns around to face the blank-faced man.

"Professor, hello. Did you need something? What are you doing out here in the first place?"

"Do you like rope?"

"Er- rope?"

"Rope." Byleth confirms. "Do you like it?"

"Uh… I don't mind it?" Ashe says uncertainly. Where in the goddess's name is this going?

"Good." The man nods. "You may need that."

"Need what?"

"Not minding rope."

Ashe is completely lost. "Uh… of course Professor."

Byleth nods seriously and turns away. "Good luck."

"Right." Good luck with what? What's going on? Why did the professor come all the way out of the monastery and down the path towards the town just to ask him that?

###

"You are responsible for this, aren't you?"

"Hello to you too Princess." Claude grins. "You're going to have to be more specific. I'm responsible for a lot of things."

"The Professor." Edelgard says with a severe frown. "He's been going on about rope-"

"Wait, really?" Claude interrupts. A massive smile crosses his face and he sits up. "Holy shit, who has he talked to?"

"Myself, Ashe, and Flayn at the very least." The princess says. "Although we have no idea what he's actually referring to because he's incredibly vague about it. He asked Ashe if he likes rope, asked me if students have access to rope, and asked Flayn if she knew where to find some rope."

"That's hilarious." Claude looks immensely pleased. "Wow, that is not what I intended him to focus on. Did he do anything else?"

"Yes." Another voice says, holding some faint disappointment. Claude glances at them and waves.

"Well, if it ain't Teach's favourite pupil. Marshmallow is what he calls you, right Mercie?"

"Mercedes to you." The girl says calmly.

"Ouch, cold! Have I offended thee somehow?" Claude asks somewhat sarcastically, clearly enjoying this. Mercedes, polite as ever, doesn't scowl or frown, but she does look down her nose at him a bit. "I get you're the 'mom' of the Lions, but you're not Teach's mom too."

The older girl sighs. "Claude, you know very well the professor is naive. Please do not feed him old rumors and stereotypes."

"Ah, so you know what this is about." The boy smirks. "Has he talked to Petra yet?"

"No. Thankfully he talked to me first, though only after speaking with several other people." Mercedes says.

"Aww, that would have been funny." Claude huffs.

Now Mercedes frowns at him. "You think it amusing for him to believe an incredibly racist stereotype that you taught him? I see."

"Hey, give me some slack! I didn't even think he'd pay attention to that little tidbit!" Claude protests. "And I didn't think he'd talk to anyone outside of whom it concerned!" Well, them and Mercedes of course.

The older girl is still frowning at him by the way.

"Look, I'll go clear up the misunderstanding, all right?"

"I've already done that." Mercedes informs him. She crosses her arms.

"What? What do you want me to do?"

"I expect an apology." She says firmly. "To Byleth."

"Fine mom."

"Mercedes." The girl corrects.

"You don't make Teach call you Mercedes."

"He doesn't go around telling lies, now does he?" Mercedes says calmly.

"Okay, yeah, she's mad." Claude winces.

Edelgard, meanwhile, regards Mercedes with a newfound respect. There are not many people who can scold Claude and actually have him care that he's being scolded.

###

"-is for basic ringlets. Drills require a bit more effort, because it is not simply a matter of curling the hair and letting it fall as it may." Flayn explains. "They also require gel more oft than not."

"Right." Byleth nods. He does this while rolling the girl's hair around small wooden spools which he then carefully ties off. "You look old like this."

"An old maid with curlers in her hair? I assure you professor, 'tis not just the elderly who use such things, they are just the only ones who are actually seen with them in." Flayn giggles. "I shan't stay like this for long Professor, there are other styles still to show."

"Understood."

"Should I intend to actually have ringlets, t'would require me to sleep with these overnight." She gestures to the makeshift curlers (empty spools) in her hair. "Else my hair will not keep shape."

"That seems inconvenient."

"Indeed it is." Flayn agrees. "Nice hair can require great effort Professor." She unrolls the curlers that Byleth rolled up and sets them aside. "Now, have you seen Felix's hair?"

"Yes."

"A bun. Or, at least, a small bun." Flayn says. "Now, the bun is a style with many, many variants. One could probably teach a class only on bun variants! However, for the sake of not getting distracted, I will demonstrate a simple bun."

Flayn does so. It takes barely a minute, and only uses a small band of fabric to keep the style in place. She allows the man to study it for a moment before undoing the style and letting Byleth try.

These quick tutorials on how to style hair stemmed from Byleth's interest in her hairstyle before. While Flayn is fairly sure he was initially interested in learning how to hide weapons in hair (he really is obsessed with that idea for some reason) he is now showing genuine interest in the various styles for hopefully no ulterior motive.

They are conducting this lesson in Byleth's room. Seteth allowed it after a stern warning to Byleth not to let anything happen to her (it seems her brother has finally accepted that the Professor is no danger himself).

The Professor's room is quite barren. His desk has several textbooks and reference books on it, but other than that the room has only the basic furniture of any student room. There is absolutely no customization whatsoever.

Byleth finishes the bun in thrice the time it took Flayn to do it herself, which is expected. While not nearly as elegant, his attempt was by no means a disaster. It's perfectly functional.

"Well done Professor!" She praises. "Next…"

###

You could mistake the scene for something out of a book. The duo of brawlers, one giant and one rather short, facing off against a hyper-competent hero.

By that, of course, Ingrid means Raphael and Caspar are sparring against the Professor in a tag-team. It's funny seeing two highly muscled young men get demolished by the comparatively wispy Professor.

Not that he actually is wispy. Ingrid remembers when he spent nearly an entire day without his shirt. He just looks it with his outfit on because the loose fabric hides his body rather well.

The Professor just finished beating Felix (again) in a duel… after beating Dimitri, and Edelgard, and Lysithea, and-

He's fought a lot of people today, but he's yet to take a proper hit. Ingrid already had her turn, fighting alongside Sylvain, and they lost easily. Ingrid doesn't know why everyone decided today was the day they'd all fight the Professor, but it doesn't seem to be helping them all that much.

Byleth deftly weaves around Raphael, grabs Caspar's arm as he throws a punch, throws the smaller boy over his head, then haymakers Rapahel in the face when the larger boy turns around.

Thankfully he's wearing padded gloves, but that still has to sting.

The only person in the long chain of challengers that actually seems to pose a threat to Byleth is Petra, which isn't surprising considering she has more personal training from him than anyone else. Their fight is done with all the weapons on their person, so it runs the gamut from swords, daggers, hand-to-hand, and any combination of the two. Petra seems to favor a dagger and sword setup, while Byleth goes with double dagger or dagger and freehand.

Petra still loses, but she's slightly more impressive than the others.

###

"You might consider talking to your father first, or Seteth, or Mercedes, or literally anyone else before you do this."

"I thought you were finally gone."

"Rude!"

"Then leave. Go haunt someone else."

"I am not a ghost!"

"But you don't have a body, and you talk directly into my head. So you're a ghost. Either that, or you're a telepath. If you are a telepath… then still go away."

"How do you know I'm not something else? Like… an angel."

"Angels have platinum skin, and they're still solid. You look more like an elf, which are also solid by the way."

"What. Have you met them before?" Sothis huffs. "Angels and elves?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"The angel could glow, and the elf… had pointy ears."

"What a ringing endorsement of their uniqueness."

"They were both normal. I think." Byleth says calmly as he steps up onto the wall and glances down the nearly sheer cliff face. "I don't know what normal is exactly, but they did not strike me as too unusual."

"Okay, whatever, just get down from the wall. Please?"

"I need to find some sleep root and rot berries."

"You can buy those."

"But why would I spend money when I can just get them myself?" He points a few dozen meters down. "There's some right there."

"It's dangerous!"

"No it's not." Byleth casually hops off the wall onto a small ledge a meter below him. Sothis hisses in fear, and the mercenary blinks. "If you don't like it, leave."

"I can't!"

"Then go back to sleep."

"Just- noooo don't! Oh my stars, stop!"

"I'm busy."

"Stop being busy and get back up! I'm sur- AAAH! "

"I do this all the time. I do not see the problem this time." Byleth says flatly as he makes a nimble leap from his current ledge to land on a rock about the side of a large dinner plate. He's about five or six meters down the cliff face now, and there's a least a few dozen meters to go. "Please stop yelling. I'm listening for assassins."

"Assassins!? You have bigger problems then-"

"Hmm, that's probably big enough to land on…"

"-your paranoid delu- STOOOOOP!"

Byleth lands without a problem on the small rock. Sothis holds back a shriek as he takes aim for an even smaller rock next.

###

"Professor."

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Staring at math questions."

"I see…" Mercedes murmurs. "Do you plan on doing the math question?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Hilda made a good suggestion that I should 'train my brain' by staring at some math questions."

"Hilda?" Mercedes murmurs to herself. She's guessing that the actual conversation was more like Hilda making slight fun of Byleth being oblivious to a fault, and him, again, taking a joke way too literally.

"Mercedes?"

"Yes?"

"How long should I stare at these?"

"You can stop Professor." Mercedes murmurs. "Incidentally… how long have you been doing that?"

"When was breakfast?"

It's almost dinner time. "Oh dear…"

###

"I don't want to know, I don't want to know, I don't want to know." Ferdinand chants to himself when he sees the Professor pinning Ignatz to the floor. "I don't want to know, but I should intervene."

Reluctantly, he approaches the two.

"Professor, I must protest such treatment of a student." Ferdinand says loudly. "You cannot simply shove Ignatz to the ground without a good reason!"

"I have a good reason." Byelth responds flatly. "I was told to 'pin him down' because no one can find him by Seteth."

"I was just painting!" Ignatz yelps.

"Professor, 'pin him down' just means 'find him'." Ferdinand coughs. "Not literally pinning him down."

"I see." He turns his gaze to the boy and pokes him in the forehead. "Found you."

Ignatz swallows thickly and Ferdinand sighs. This went about as well as he expected.

###

"I am fine." Byleth insists. He sounds absolutely unconvincing with his hoarse voice and red eyes.

"No, you are sick." Mercedes corrects. She's currently pulling him by the arms back to his room.

"I have to teach."

"You have to sleep." Mercedes corrects. "Everyone else agrees Professor."

"Seteth will complain."

"Once he is told that you are sick, he won't mind Professor."

"Showing that you are weakened puts you at risk… I cannot rest. I must continue my work so as to dissuade assailants."

"What assailants?" She asks patiently.

"Assassins." Byleth says with conviction.

"Professor…" Mercedes sighs. "What assassins would go after you rather than the archbishop?"

"Ones that don't like me."

The older girl sighs. "Honestly Professor, unless the assassin in your father's company- Acrim, correct? -suddenly develops a hatred of you, I think you are safe."

Byleth pouts, not agreeing, but he doesn't argue any further.

"How did you get sick so suddenly anyhow?" Mercedes murmurs. "What have you been doing the last few days?"

"I sparred with everyone yesterday and then stared at math questions, I went down the cliff to get some sleep root and rot berries the day before that, Flayn taught me hairstyles the same day, and I also fished in the lake-"

"So he exhausted himself several times in two days while still having to teach, spending time likely in a lake and climbing rocks where there are plenty of germs, and not getting enough sleep as usual." Mercedes surmises silently. "It's a wonder he didn't get sick sooner."

"-and I also fished the day before, and spent the day before that in the forest finding some herbs…" Byleth continues to recount.

"I get the idea Professor." Mercedes sighs. "I think we need to have a talk after you get better..."

"We always talk."

"I mean a discussion about your scheduling habits." Mercedes sighs. "But that will be later. For now, sleep."

That chapter was fun. This story is always a treat to write. The best of it was certainly the first few chapters. The comedy has slowly been seeping out of the story, which doesn't surprise me. I think this has turned into a weird "what if" scenario of a hyper-literal and socially oblivious Byleth.

Oh, if you don't understand the first two segments, read through Claude and Petra's A support.