A/N: Huge shout out to Suikorin, TheHappy, Love it, emzhao07010, and Ma boi for the wonderful reviews. For you, I'll publish this chapter early. Although, last time I did that, I did the "Secret Base" which maybe could be better as a deleted scene.

Don't thank me, though, because I do something very, very terrible in this chapter. When my alpha readers (my kids) learned what I was going to do in the this chapter, they were all, "You can't do that!" However, I wanted to anyway, as it helps to develop the story in a variety of ways. You have been warned. Once again, it is my challenge to be convincing.

I was about to publish the entire arc in this chapter, but it would have made a really long chapter. So I split it up again. Let me know if you would have rather had it be one chapter... But, believe me, it will turn out; it will be okay, one way or another. I will publish part 2 on Saturday. So I hope you survive without throwing the "book" across the room.

Chapter 9 - The Breakdown Part 1

Uh oh, Kokomi thought as Nendo walked away. She couldn't get in the business of kissing everybody who made her feel good about herself. Nendo had made her feel important, had made her feel … special.

Okay, so he made her feel special. Did that mean she liked him? It was Nendo after all. But Nendo, though kind of dense, was surprisingly in touch with friendships and feelings. But how would he be in a relationship?

She had liked Kusuo because he could see her as a person. And despite whatever bravado he had put on in the last three years, he actually had been sweet, particularly in moments where it didn't matter. Yes, he screwed up the first set of dates, but he did that on purpose. However, there were a number of moments where he truly had been there for her when she needed someone.

Now, Nendo was starting to see her as well. He hadn't gotten as far as Kusuo, but were her feelings for Kusuo only based on him being the only one who could? How much more was there?

But, at the moment, Nendo had never broken her heart, so there was that to consider. That didn't stop her from feeling guilty about the kiss. On the other hand, maybe that meant she was far enough along with Kusuo to get her heart broken.

Kokomi decided to distract herself from having to process those thoughts, already mentally exhausted from dealing with partial telepathy all day and having to figure out how to save Kusuo. So she tried to follow his suggestion and started to practice her powers. So she chose to watch him with clairvoyance. She watched him gain thirty centimeters in height and blow several things up. She chuckled. She watched him walking away from his house, and she hoped he was coming to visit her. She craved for him to fix her trust issues, but he turned in a different direction and went to Chiyo's instead. Huh? Chiyo? She had a hard time using telepathy and clairvoyance at the same time, so she couldn't quite tell what was going on. He and Chiyo vanished, and she had to find them again. There they are... They had made it to the top of the school, what was left of it, where apparently Kusuo wanted to share him fixing the school with her. Then they were in Kusuo's bedroom, and he gave her some roses. Then a kiss on the cheek, and then vanished again.

Then they were in her room. Kokomi barely flinched; she wasn't happy. We're trying to fix things! Now you're out with Chiyo?! She pursed her lips.

Chiyo's hand was resting gently on Kusuo's shoulder. They were both smiling.

Breathe, Kokomi, breathe! Perfect, perfect on the inside, perfect kind-of-girlfriend. Perfect, perfect, PERFECT! She just couldn't be perfect at the moment, so she threw her arms behind her, ran out, and left them alone in her room.

Kusuo tried to follow her through the hallway. He looked in all directions but couldn't see where she went. He was completely baffled. What happened? What did I do? It probably wasn't a good idea to go looking for her through her house. He looked over at Yumehara, who shook her head and shrugged. "I … guess we go home then." As he put his arm on Yumehara's shoulder to leave, he heard Kokomi's thoughts.

Why, Kusuo? Why with her? Why with my best friend? It was a soft, hurt voice he heard, as he zapped away.

Oh, that's it. She thinks I'm flirting/cheating/interested-in/something with Yumehara. When he got to Yumehara's house, he explained to her what he suspected, and started walking back home.

Kokomi wasn't answering any of his calls or messages. Again.

Kokomi hadn't gone far. She had just gone into the hallway, hoping Kusuo would come after her. She couldn't hear specific words in his thoughts, but instead could detect an overall sense of confusion. He came into the hallway and looked around. She was waiting at the end of the hallway, upset but hopeful. He looked in her direction, and stared for a second, but it was more like he was staring through her - like she wasn't there at all. He didn't stop to explain; he just turned and left. With her.

She slid down the wall, put her head on her knees, and started sniffling. I can't keep doing this, Kusuo.

Once he got home, Kusuo pondered his life choices. See? Don't make friends, nobody gets hurt, he thought. He had finally gotten her to forgive all the crap from the past, and was working on earning her trust or fixing her heart or whatever he was supposed to do, and then this happens.

He did suspect he might be able to eventually convince Kokomi that he wasn't putting the moves on Yumehara. And then he would be back at the beginning, trying to regain her trust again. He had a feeling he wouldn't want to ride this roller coaster if he had to keep convincing her of his intentions.

Then again, maybe she deserved it, with him blowing her off for years.

Kusuo sighed. He needed to get his mind off of the feelings business for a while.

He thought back to what he'd been able to accomplish with Yumehara. They were quite a team - she couldn't do anything by herself, and he couldn't use his powers without tragedy without her. Together, they almost made an entire psychic.

He felt a strong impression that he could teleport on demand now. He was scared of getting lost again, but he had to try sometime. The only place he could think of was Kokomi's house, so he tried to teleport to her roof. He closed his eyes, and took a breath, and then he was there.

Yes! One power down, hundreds to go. He had the sudden thought that he might need to turbocharge each power one at a time with Yumehara. Oh, Kokomi would love that.

He was wondering if he could eavesdrop on any thoughts that Kokomi would accidentally broadcast, but there was nothing. Kusuo lay back onto the roof for a moment, and thought of how he was just meters away from Kokomi...

After a minute of moping, he shook it off, and wanted to practice some more. He tried teleporting back home, and couldn't. Huh? He started pacing on the rooftop, wondering how he would explain to Kokomi what he was doing here. But after a few minutes tried again. It worked this time. Ah, I must still have the three-minute cooldown. This means I'm only as powerful as I was with my limiters in. Well, without Yumehara, anyway. He decided to teleport to some of his old favorites: the volcano, Okinawa, the mall in England, the rainforest, and a few others, all a few minutes apart. Success!

He tried to heat the popcorn again, and it exploded again. It seemed his hypothesis was correct - one power at a time.

Now what to do about Kokomi. He decided to ask his family for advice.

"Just buy her something nice," his dad said.

"Wait by her door so she has to acknowledge you," Kusuke said.

"You're going to have to remove doubt that you're interested in this other girl, and reaffirm your interest in her," his mom said. "Oh, and honey, don't forget there's no school tomorrow."

He knew what to do.

The next day, Shun found his meetingplace. He was in a large auditorium at the other end of town.

"Welcome, Kokomins!" said the familiar voice of the new president of the TFC. Shun still didn't know his name. He would have to fix that sometime.

There was thunderous applause from the audience. He looked around. There were probably 500 people in the audience from over the whole country. Apparently this was a big deal meeting.

"All the Rank 3 Kokomins and above were invited to this conference. Those who couldn't make it in person are online with virtual conferencing. About 750 of you are here in person or virtually."

This many Rank 3s. I'm not all that special after all, but hey, it only took about a week to get this far.

"First order of business. The news of last week has trickled down to all the other chapters. Understandably, many have decided to leave the club. About twenty percent. They don't agree with the new direction. Of course, many of the Rank 7s don't care about club politics, but many of the higher ranks have walked out. You will each remind them where their loyalty should lie."

There were some gasps in the audience. Kaido was briefly alarmed. Does he mean threaten them? Keep them in line?

"Next, the council is preparing something … big. We need to go through a few trial runs, and make sure the time is right, and then we will trickle the news down the ranks, one rank at a time, when we're sure they can handle it."

Something big? After beating up Teruhashi followers, how big could it be? Whatever it was, Shun knew he had to hold out long enough to figure it out.

Other than that, though, it was just like the previous meeting - Teruhashi sightings, Teruhashii's mood, Teruhashi being seen happy, Teruhsashi being seen upset. Then Saiki involvement, Saiki bringing her a flower (accompanied by boos and "how dare he"s), Saiki dating her and holding her hand, and doing who knows what else, Saiki making her cry, Saiki being beaten up (cheers), Teruhashi following him home (boos).

"The beating may have inadvertently brought them back together. What we need now, is a way to drive Teruhashi and Saiki so far apart that they couldn't possibly recover. Ideas?"

For the first time in his dealings with the TFC, the floor was open for discussion. It occurred to him that he was equal with most of the audience in rank.

Most of the ideas were really stupid or just variations on the "beat him up" theme. However, Shun had information that might help. He stood up and raised his hand, and when it was his turn, he said, "I happen to know that Saiki and Teruhashi are fighting right now."

"You're sure? This is since the beating? Our intelligence has suggested she and Saiki survived last week's fight."

Kaido nodded. "This is a new fight, since last night, in fact. She thinks he's cheating on her." Chiyo had filled him in on the details over text.

The president put a sly grin on his face. "We can do something with that information." He put the next meeting time on the board, and said "Meeting adjourned."

It was mid-morning when Kusuo just finished his letter to Kokomi. Yes, a letter. You can delete messages, ignore calls and texts, but it's hard to ignore an actual letter. He was walking over to hand-deliver it, deciding it would mean more if he walked and didn't teleport.

He had almost made it to Kokomi's house when suddenly he saw her at the end of the street, and she wasn't alone. With that chin and hair, there was no mistaking Nendo as the person she was with. Right at that moment, she stepped closer, looked upward, put her arms around his waist and kissed him. Kusuo's heart stopped. Wh- He couldn't stop watching - he just stood there like a big dummy with his mouth hung open and kept watching. Nendo had an arm around her waist, and the other hand on the back of her neck; she had had to get on her tiptoes to reach. They eventually finished; she moved her hands to his shoulders, and they smiled at each other for a moment, and finally walked away.

What the hell, Teruhashi?! He was half expecting a telepathic response, but didn't get one. Kusuo was still so astonished that he stood watching the spot where it happened for a solid two minutes, and then just turned around and went home.

So that's it, is it? You get mad at me, thinking I am falling for somebody else, and then YOU start kissing the nearest available guy?!

Why Nendo?! He did remember her talking to Nendo while he was recovering. Nendo was pretty easy to talk to, and is remarkably in touch with his sensitive side, maybe they kind of hit it off then? Was this to get back at him for "seeing" her best friend? Kokomi couldn't be that petty, but then again, maybe suffering the heartbreak had just caused her to snap. He remembered her on Monday at school, bringing the entire school's mood down with her black aura.

When Kusuo got home, he got a message.
Kokomi: Let's talk.

He ignored it. Every hour or two, she tried again, and he ignored them all. Eventually in the afternoon, he got a knock on the door. It was Yumehara.

"Okay, what gives, Saiki? She's ready to let last night go."

"What about this morning?" he said with a sneer.

"What are you talking about?" Yumehara looked perplexed.

"When she was kissing Nendo."

Yumehara made a befuddled face and actually started laughing. "What?! There's no way." She saw his serious face, and started pacing around his entryway. "It just doesn't make any sense."

"I saw it. I was about to give her this." He showed her the envelope. Naturally, he didn't let her read it.

"Awww. That's sweet."

Chiyo was trying to add it up. Kokomi was trying to make up with Kusuo for last night. After she kissed Nendo. Why would she try to make up after kissing somebody else in broad daylight in the middle of the street?

She did remember Kokomi suggesting a long time ago she liked Nendo and Chiyo laughed at the thought. Chiyo did think Nendo was more emotionally balanced than most of the other guys in the school, but she just couldn't get past his hair. And that he stared at everybody at chest level at the beach.

"Uh, Saiki? I want to see this for myself. Can your powers show me your memories?"

"Absolutely." He put her hand on her shoulders, and replayed the events in his mind, and sent them to her mind. Every vivid detail.

When Kusuo got up in the morning, he started hearing the voices. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty to show her the memory - she had added telepathy to the set of powers that were now activated.

I love you more.
No, I love you more.

Ugh, his parents never stopped. His brother was scheming something. I guess I suspected that would happen after using telepathy, he chastised himself.

"Don't you guys have anything better to do?"

His parents barged into his room so fast the door blew off the hinges. "Ku, are your powers back?"

"Some of them. They seem to be coming back gradually and one at a time."

His dad was quick, "but you can teleport! Hey, how about, for old times' sake..."

Fine. He was gone and back in three minutes.

"Ku, honey, you probably should have let him put his pants on first."

Oops.

"Hey, any progress with Kokomi?" his mom asked, and he shook his head. He sat down on the bed, and balled his hands into fists.

"I just don't know if it's worth it. One step forward is two steps back. She…" he couldn't even finish the sentence. "Can we move one more time? Please?"

"Listen, take away what you're fighting about, is she still special to you?" He thought a little, and eventually let out a forceful breath, and nodded. But he was still furious. "Just make sure she knows."

She patted his shoulder and left. A few minutes later, Kusuke came in. "I've been expecting this, with the powers."

"Oh, really."

"Yes, after our last conversation, I extrapolated the course of events, and this path seemed 73.5% likely," he said with his typical hyper intensity. I just finished this for you, just a few minutes ago. Look at this!" He pulled out a ring. It was a dull gray ring with a dark red gemstone (probably fake) and inscriptions of dragons down both sides.

"Wow, this is actually impressive."

"Once again, the specifications dictated the design. This one is designed to filter unwanted powers. See, on the inside layer is an interface that connects to your nerve endings, and has a neural interface where you can control the settings with your mind. So you can tell it things like 'I want to be left alone except for talking with Chin or Blue-Hair, or for obvious cries for help', or 'I want to hear everything,' or 'I want to turn off xray vision'. It acts as a filter between your powers and the rest of the world."

Saiki pretended to not be excited. That would be great! "Ok, what's the catch? Will it self-destruct after a month? Is there a mind probe that transmits all my thoughts to you?"

"Oh Ku", he said, mimicking his mother, "don't you trust me? Oh, I made you a second one as well, in case you, um, lose that one, like you did your other germanium ring." Kusuo suspected he knew more than he let on.

The second one was identical, except the gemstone was dark blue, there were flowers instead of dragons, and seemed just a little bit smaller. "Thanks, Kusuke," he said, and meant it. Kusuke walked away.

It took a long time for Kokomi to fall asleep. Instead of letting her apologize for the misunderstanding the other night, he wasn't answering her messages. Chiyo told her he was mad about her kissing Nendo. She had gone from being mad at him for whatever happened with Chiyo, then trying to make up for it, to being on the receiving end of his anger for the Nendo thing.

So, she tossed and turned for hours.

Kokomi awoke on Thursday to voices surrounding her. She had thought there were 30 people in her bedroom, but nobody was there. Apparently her telepathy was in full force now. She ran quickly to her bathroom and threw up.

She heard the thoughts of her parents, who both happened to be home at the same time for once. They weren't speaking to each other, but they both had plenty to say in their minds.

I wonder if I time it right, I can catch Kokomi changing again.

Kokomi guffawed. She had suspicions of her brother's "interest" in her, but never had such outright evidence. If she were in a good mood, or had gotten decent sleep, she might have been able to let it go. However, she was still reeling over the Kusuo situation, so instead, she had a devious idea. She started making motions as if she were going to get dressed. She knew from his thoughts that he was leaning against the door. She quickly opened the door, and he stumbled into her room, and over her outstretched foot.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Makoto. I didn't see you there."

It was about as vindictive as she got. But if he kept it up, she knew she could get worse.

Kokomi started walking to school on Thursday morning. Walking down neighborhood streets, she heard everything from the mundane to the insane.

Maybe I'll call in sick today.
Can't wait for the weekend.
Ooh - it's nice to live next to Teruhashi. Her smile helps me feel better every morning.
I'm going back home. I wonder what it would take to get her to come with me.
Dog ate my homework.
I wish something would happen in this town.
My kids are driving me crazy.

She heard detailed plans to rob convenience stores, desires for others to fall over dead, wishes to be noticed. She saw people acting nicely around each other but their minds were full of contempt.

As she got closer to school, she walked along busier and busier streets and the thoughts intensified, particularly the ones where she was concerned. Most of those were nice, but some were selfish, and others were downright perverse. She was always the center of attention, and there was nothing she could do about it. Sigh. I'm so close to class… I'll be safe there.

She was getting more and more flustered, as she joined the sea of students entering the school. It was hard to keep her normal "perfect" face on. She wasn't able to get in the zone while she was still at home, and it wasn't working here either. Her mouth was twitching, and her glow was flashing in and out.

Is something wrong with Teruhashi?
This has something to do with Saiki. He's dead.
She's so pretty when she's sad.
I know I could cheer her up.
Saiki looks back to his old self today. He actually looked pretty hot when he smiled, but looks like Frowny mcFrown Face is back.

Kokomi needed a minute to compose herself, so she went to the bathroom. She had a good but brief cry. I'm not sure I'm going to make it all the way through school like this. I could probably make it through this if Kusuo and I were talking, but ...