Disclaimer: I do not own Mob Psycho 100 or any of its characters. I don't think I could do them justice like ONE does.
To Walk Among Giants
Reigen Arataka truly believed that no one was better than anyone else.
Sure, you had people who were faster, people who were cleverer, people who had unfortunate body odor, but at the end of the day, they were all people. It was their unique traits that made them, well, themselves, but they weren't better people because of those things.
Choosing to be kind, as he had once told Mob, was what really made you a good, a better, person. He had been just trying to reassure the kid who had suddenly appeared before him, but he had found that he truly thought that.
That being said, he knew that he was nothing compared to the psychics that he found himself surrounded by.
Reigen had been shocked when he had first seen Mob's power. He hadn't believed such things were real until that moment, but he was in for an even larger surprise. He truly saw exactly how powerful Mob was the first time he saw one of his emotional blow-ups.
It'd been building all day apparently, but tripping right in front of a client had been the final straw. The moment she'd been out the door, it was 100% Embarrassment. The walls shook; tables, chairs, anything not bolted down left the floor. Mob himself had floated in the air, slightly glowing, and the supposed loss of control had just made him more embarrassed. Reigen had been shocked once more, finally getting a taste of Mob's true power despite seeing him exorcising spirits, but overall, he'd been more worried about the kid.
Reigen hadn't been quite sure what to do. So he'd just done what he always did and went with the flow. He had tugged Mob down and held him until he calmed down. Then they'd had a talk.
Talking always seemed to help Mob, even though he was sometimes reluctant to start the conversation. Luckily, Reigen had learned to read him so he knew when to push or not. It still surprised Reigen even to this day how Mob listened and trusted him. He didn't even know what he had done to earn that trust.
And, in the end, that incident had just been the tip of the iceberg.
Mob may have been the most powerful esper he'd ever met, but that didn't mean there weren't other powerful espers out there.
The fight with Claw's 7th Division had clearly shown him that. The espers of Claw, and even Ritsu and that Hanazawa kid, had proved to be very powerful. Still, in his search for checking on Mob and not even knowing the situation, Reigen had still walked in there.
Even though he was nothing special, the most common of commoners. Those psychics, and so many of the spirits and espers they had met since then, could crush him like a bug. They almost had many times.
It was only in the middle of the night when he was alone that Reigen thought about those "almost" times.
Heck, even Dimple was more useful in a fight than he was when it came to these psychic problems. The evil spirit knew his way around this world a lot more than Reigen did, and he could probably look after and teach Mob a lot better than he could. He'd certainly helped Ritsu learn how to control his power after all.
But still, Mob, Hanazawa, the former 7th Division, the other psychic kids, they still turned to him when the chips were down. He had no power, nothing much to contribute other than a few strategies and the occasional punch, and they still wanted him to help them.
Quite frankly, it baffled Reigen.
Surely he wasn't that good at fooling them into thinking he had powers. Ritsu had never believed it; Dimple, though he wasn't really aware of him at the time, probably called him out on it from the get-go; and the Claw espers had questioned it. It turned out even Mob had always known the truth.
He was a con man that used his wits to figure out his customers and help them, even when there was actually no problem. He had absolutely no powers.
So why?
Or maybe the question wasn't why these people decided to rely on him, but why he let them rely on him. After all, unlike them, he actually knew better.
So then…
"Master?"
Reigen broke away from his reverie to see Mob standing in the doorway, Dimple floating over his shoulder.
"Ah, Mob." He said, glancing at the clock. It really was time for the kid to arrive. It'd been a slow day and Serizawa hadn't been able to come due to a class project. "Right on time I see." He smiled at him as he rose from his seat.
"Yes." Mob said with a small smile, taking his bag over to his small desk.
As he was sitting down, the phone rang and Reigen answered it. The client's voice droned in his ear as they explained the situation.
"All right, we'll be right there." Reigen said with a smile and a flourish of his hand. "I, Reigen Arataka, promise to set things right in an instant." The phone was dropped back into its cradle. "Mob, we've got a case." He told his assistant. "Let's go."
"Of course." Mob said pleasantly enough as he followed him out the door, despite Dimple's grumbles. The two of them started off towards the client's house. "Uh, Master?"
"Hmm?" Reigen looked over at him.
"Are you okay?" Mob asked. "You seem…" His expression, obviously at a loss as how to describe what he was thinking.
However, a smile was growing on Reigen's face as he remembered his thoughts from earlier.
Oh, yeah. That's why.
"Ah, think nothing of it, Mob." Reigen reassured him, gesturing wildly. "Your master was just thinking of some things is all." He ruffled Mob's hair fondly with a grin.
"You actually think?" Dimple deadpanned.
As he and Dimple launched into an argument, Reigen caught the look of relief on Mob's face. Internally, he smiled even wider.
Despite having no powers, despite not having much to offer when it came to those big psychic battles, Reigen would still walk into them.
Because if he didn't look after Mob and those other kids, then who else would?
AN: Just a little introspective Reigen piece. I mean, he knows all these guys are more powerful, though not better, than him but he still gets involved in these psychic battles anyway. Yet he still walked right up to Suzuki Touichirou to try to talk him down, apologizing to Mob for letting him go after him alone, right after he saw that Dimple got his butt handed to him. This guy is just unbelievable; I love him so much.
Also, Dimple's alive. I will believe that until given definite proof.
