Chapter 13 - Grandmother Risa Part 2

Kusuo laid down on top of his made bed, contemplating whether he should just crawl underneath the covers again and go back to sleep.

Despite having been in bed for what he can infer from his parent's thoughts to be at least two days, he still felt fairly tired. Every movement still felt unnatural, like he was wearing a shell of himself, wearing a mask of his face, looking at himself in third person. His mind was still swirling from the events of the previous days, still sifting through memories of different timelines and banishing the irrelevant ones. He thought of his mother's emotional outburst, his father's oddly steady presence in all of this, and the meal with Risa. He thought about Kuusuke again, and seriously considered about how to tell his parents.

Maybe just wait? If his mother's reaction to his mild issue of extended sleep was any indication, crying would be the least of her reactions. The news had to get to his maternal grandparents too. How would his tsudere grandfather Kumagoro take it?

Almost as an afterthought, Kusuo used clairvoyance on his grandfather.

Gross. Sitting on the toilet and reading a newspaper. Kumagoro was more than fine. He would be back to yelling at his son-in-law, Kuniharu, in no time.

What about...Ani...?

Steadying his heart beat, Kusuo tried clairvoyance for Kuusuke.

Still nothing.

Kusuo threw an arm over his eyes, doing breathing exercises to calm his heart, steadying his emotions, supressing the urge to flatten everything within Kanto Region.

Kuusuke would had berated him for being so mentally undisciplined.

Why would he even think that?

The gentle click of the door to his room shook him from his thought train. Didn't he lock the door?

It was Grandmother Risa. She shuffled in, making mini-steps that was forced by her customary dress. She seemed unabashed as she put away the whatever card she used to loid the locked door open.

Great. Grandmother Risa was one of those people.

Well, that was better than what his parents would do. Dad would just pound on the door nonstop and make a racket if he did not respond. Mom would break the door handle in for which he would have to restore.

Kusuo sat up on his bed, looking at this traditionally-dressed woman, his finger on the germanium ring again.

"Don't you dare remove that ring," said Risa to Kusuo as she walked in and closed the door. "At your current state, you might start burning again. Do not disrespect your mother by being so careless with the body she's given you."

Strange comments aside, Kusuo's natural irreverent side could not resist a sharp comment back. "You should tell that to your son." Kusuo recalled what had to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of time that he had to use Restoration on his father, from the far too many stubbed toes to near death from falling off a tree wrong.

At that, Risa stared at him for five seconds, then laughed. It was deep and throaty, diffusing some of the tension. "That, I do not disagree. Kuniharu wasn't always this careless, you know. Being surrounded by such capable blood kins spoiled him. It's human nature to be so give and take"

Kusuo gave her a penetrating gaze. He recalled his own same conclusion about human nature, back during that brief period when his parents were fighting over some minor slight that neither remembered. He had reflected that he probably should not indulge his father's requests for making life easier, or else he would make his father even more gutless.

Such strange agreeance with his own opinion was disarming.

"Where are my parents?" asked Kusuo. The house was too quiet.

"Out. They're going to a burn doctor to check out Kuniharu's hands," said Risa. "He's going to be fine, but your mother felt compelled," There was a hint of disapproval in her voice. She looked at Kusuo with intense interest as she got uncomfortably close. "May I...touch you?"

What kind of question is that? thought Kusuo.

"Nothing improper, I assure you," Risa further clarified. "I wish to confirm something."

Taking his silence as approval, Risa reached over and lightly touched the top of his head and traced his hairline.

Kusuo was tense, ready to shrink away the moment that hand got too close to the limiters. He was wary of unintentional device removal. If he was not mentally prepared, the act could render him unconscious. Since there were two now, it should not pose as much of a problem as before. Still, he was not about to experiment, especially not when the person who could mitigate his psychic issues is now out of reach.

"Ha. You are real. A little warm but stable and healthy. I cannot believe it," said Risa, she sounded nostalgic and sad. She sat back, and looked at Kusuo with misty eyes. "You know, I had a son who was born like you. Telepathy, psychokinesis, premonitions, that sort of things. You look like him, pink-hair and all. Kasei was his name. He was your father's older brother."

Now that was surprising. Kusuo had always been told, or rather, his telepathic impression, was that his father was an only child. But what truly caught his attention was Risa's mention of psychic power, the careless nonchalance of it.

"Did you really think there were no others like you?" asked Risa with amusement.

Of course, there are others, just not similar to me, thought Kusuo. He immediately considered of Toritsuka and Aiura. Both had abilities. Toritsuka with his ability to speak to and manipulate spirits while Aiura had a much more reliable version of clairvoyance, premonition, and aura sight. Others had abilities that seemed to defy the norm, like Suzamiya's super bad luck, Satou's averageness, or Hairo's incredible heat generation, but nothing as unexplained and as extraordinary as Kusuo himself.

Risa seemed to take Kusuo's silence as a question. So she continued, "There had always been abilities in our family, with most of the manifestations being ineffectual. Occasional premonitions. Seeing people's dreams, greater charm, spotty telepathy, abilities that are barely above guessing."

"But your type, ones with abilities that directly affect the physical world to your imagination..." Risa ticked her tongue, "You know, we used to mourn when children like you were born because none had ever lived past childhood." Risa smiled widely. "And yet, here you are!

"I thought Kuniharu was joking when he mentioned you and that you're a senior in high school. He did nothing special and succeeded where all of us had failed previously. You didn't even grow up with a telepathy blocker and managed to stay sane! And to see you are almost an adult, stable, healthy, able to suppress burning on your own," Risa was quiet for a moment. "Kuniharu achieved the impossible. Maybe he isn't as worthless as I thought."

Oh. He can be worthless, was Kusuo's inner opinion. His father had depended on Kusuo for far too many things. Still, Kusuo begrudgingly honored his father, as demanded by tradition, so he did not make a habit of open critique.

"And seeing you here now, knowing that it is possible to survive," Risa continued, her misty eyes returning as she stared at Kusuo, "It just...it makes me wonder what I did wrong with Kasei."

Kusuo had so many questions. None of this made sense. It did not help that he was still recovering from all the awful events of earlier. "What happened to him?" Kusuo settled on that question.

"Flashover. He barely made it to four years old. Kuniharu would not have remembered Kasei since he was only one year old at the time," said Risa. There was a slight catch in her voice. "Kasei was in such pain, burning from the inside out, in his last months, then he finally flashed over."

"What is flashover?" he asked, uneasily. He did not need to be a psychic to see that Risa was recalling unpleasant memories.

"Oh. That's right. Of course you don't know. You lived. And neither of your parents ever seen its ultimate result so they never knew it was a possibility," Risa realized. She looked like she was putting on the proverbial professorial hat. "There are two concepts that you likely already understand, but I should clarify. There is an interplay between ability and power."

Kusuo crossed his arms. This explanation had better be good.

"Ability is the act that can be accomplished and power is the energy required to perform those abilities. In terms of ability and power, you and I can generally agree that clairvoyance requires relatively little power to accomplish compared to, say, psychokinesis."

Risa noted Kusuo's subtle nod to indicate that he was following along.

"Most of the psychic abilities that manifest in this world require very little power. These are your typical sight-related abilities. These are your fortune tellers, mediums, and oracles of history. Some of them have very obvious above-normal foresight and some of them, no better than guessing.

Where does X-ray vision fit? was what Kusuo thought, but did not voice.

Risa continued. "Some abilities have variable power needs, such as telepathy and its diverse manifestation. Some can only perceive, at a close distance, and barely come close to the actual thought. That power requirement is negligible. You'd do better by reading body language. Then there are those who can broadcast, if you will, which require moderate power. Even further are those who can enforce their will via telepathy for which there is an astronomical power cost. Power requirement also increases exponentially by distance.

"I'm going to guess your telepathy allows you to broadcast and enforce will. I can tell because your lips had not moved and you seemed to communicate well enough with your parents and with me. In this, I assume that you have the higher levels of telepathy of will enforcement, at least hypnosis, because my mind kept on trying to tell me that you were moving your lips, when you obviously did not."

Risa noted that Kusuo had nodded faintly again. It seemed like it was his method of noting to people that he was paying attention. So she kept on talking.

"Then we have those with physical-impact abilities. The psychokinesis, the pyrokinesis, translocations. Those abilities require enormous amounts of power by its very nature as scientific laws are blended and bent to realize those abilities.

"These innate abilities dictate the amount of power usage and minimum power containment. Your diviners hold very little power while your pyrokinetics are often bursting at the seams."

Risa paused for a moment to observe Kusuo's facial expression.

Per usual, Kusuo's expression was blank, but it did seem like he grasped the concepts.

"So here is where burning and flashover comes in," Risa continued. "Burning occurs when the power accumulation overcomes the body's containment of that power. With nowhere to go, the power begins to dissipate as heat. This would increase the body temperature. A psychic fever, if you will.

"When I first saw you, it was obvious to me that you were burning. Your body temperature had to easily be over 100 degrees Celcius. A normal human body would have already been cooked before that. It's also very painful, so painful that you would either be screaming or simply fainted. I assumed the latter. I place that ring on you because it suppresses telepathic reception and it appears to help reduce the temperature. It was my younger sister's blocker ring, one that she wore on a necklace. It used to give my boy rare relief. I use it now when I need to focus and not distracted by thoughts."

Risa was silent for a while as she closed her eyes. "For some, the heat dissipation of power will damage the body that it eventually overcomes the body's own cellular regeneration and causes a flashover." She opened her eyes again. "In other words, spontaneous human combustion."

Kusuo listened to the information and began to piece certain events in his life together.

Now his mother's description of and response to his physical condition made sense. She probably had an idea of what was happening, especially if Kuusuke had been there to explain things the first time around.

This time, though he had forgotten to put his limiters back in because he was so preoccupied and exhausted.

If what Risa said was true, then did he just skirted death simply because he forgot to put a couple of pins back into his head?

Kuusuke would be angry if he knew his younger brother was so careless.

Kusuo frowned slightly to himself. Why would he think that? He never cared about what Kuusuke thought of him. It made no sense either. Kusuo could not recall a time that Kuusuke was ever angry. Annoyed, miffed, surprised, upset, that was for certain. Kuusuke had always been dramatic, but never angry.

Why couldn't Kusuo recall?

"So far, flashover had been the fate of all the espers in the family," Risa continued on without noticing Kusuo's inner ruminations. "Your type, the flashover occurs all too early. The more power the ability demands, the greater the flashover. My own younger sister, Miha, was the one who lived the longest previous to you. She made it almost ten years before she flashed over. The family tried everything. That blocker ring was one of them. It seemed to reduce her flare-ups. But eventually, her telepathy range became too wide and she started losing her mind, her abilities became unpredictable and she used pyrokinesis almost daily. She had become a monster to care for. It was almost a relief when she flashed over."

Kusuo felt almost pins and needles going through him as he listened to the description. A monster? Where had he heard that before? As for the pyrokinesis, that would have explained the memories of flames that Kusuo saw through psychometry earlier.

Kusuo's head felt fuzzy again. He really should not be having this conversation right now. There were too many questions and he felt terribly irritated for being told all of this now.

"And you didn't think to tell me this earlier?" asked Kusuo presently. "Or even tell my parents?"

"I never knew you even existed!" defended Risa. "All this time, I just thought Kuniharu had married your mother without thinking about the future. Without time to develop a career, he would be unable to be the provider that he should be. Being an editor for a third rate publisher can't be making much money. I thought that he would be living in a shabby apartment somewhere, probably with just one child and be chronically financially strapped. He had a take-it-by-the-day attitude and I was certain that he could barely achieve a steady middle-class. I thought your mother would've left him by now because trust me, no woman can tolerate such treatment for long.

"Then I come here, and I see this," Risa gestured vaguely to the room. "I see this huge new modern house, all these new furnishings. Then I hear that your parents were able to send your older brother to study abroad, send you to attend a private school, even raise you to adulthood. Kurumi is able to stay a housewife all these years and indulge Kuniharu. All of this should cost more money than the average family income. Maybe Kuniharu isn't as unaccomplished as I expected his nature to be."

"You're wrong on at least a couple of points," Kusuo noted, shaking his head. It was a feat that his father could work for so long and be compensated generally well for mostly licking shoes. Very few people could claim that. Kusuo had seen his father's editorial abilities. While it was above average, it was also nothing inspiring. No. the inspiring ability to be so accomplished in the manner of mainstream society had always been someone else. "Kuusuke provided this house and offered it free of charge. He went off to study abroad on scholarships and grants. He never took a single yen."

Now it was Risa's turn to frown. She was silent for a few seconds, as if testing for a few things. "Something is off here."

"What?"

"If what you've said is true, then your older brother must be extraordinary and is a large part of the family awareness. But it seems that..." Risa's brows furrowed as if trying to figure out a puzzle. "Did you mind control your parents?"

Kusuo visibly blanched at the unexpected question. "Of course not. They're my parents."

Risa's eyebrows were still furrowed, deep in thought. "But it's there. There is a very strong pervasive mind control at work here. It's barely's a whisper, almost undetectable, but permeates everything. It's preventing all attention on something."

Kusuo thought about his own mind control and hypnosis. He did negligently use those abilities to avoid drawing attention to himself. It usually worked by suggesting to people who found his appearance striking to be something far more mundane. Pink hair? It's was just some shade of red and brown, tricks of the light. His old limiters with those eye-catching pink antennas? Simple hairpins that are completely normal on a guy. His green spectacles which made looking at body parts all day slightly more bearable than ordinary clear glasses and prevent accidental petrification of people? He was just some guy who was sensitive to light. "I use some passive mind control to keep attention away from myself," said Kusuo.

Risa shook her head again. "No no. It's not you. Everyone before you had done something to keep people from noting your unique appearance. It's something far deeper. It's like...I can't even say the name. I've heard it and read it many times, but it seemed to vanish as soon as I think of it. And you've said that you keep attention off yourself only." Risa looked at Kusuo with a sudden look of clarity. "Of all the people you know who know of him, how many knew his name? His given name? Outside of the family?"

"Of who?"

"Your older brother."

Kusuo seemed to space out as his mind quickly ticked off a list of people who knew of Kuusuke.

Teruhashi was certain to know Kuusuke's name. She was over on New Year and their parents said Kuusuke's name plenty enough time. Now that Kusuo thought about it, Teruhashi had only ever thought of Kuusuke as "Kusuo's older brother." This could have been the habit of politeness in Teruhashi's drive to be the perfect pretty girl.

There was Toritsuka, who had the longest interaction with Kuusuke. Kusuo was certain that Toritsuka didn't know Kuusuke's name. Toritsuka had asked Kusuo several times for a name for which Kusuo flat out refused to tell him. Kusuo felt that if Kuusuke did not let Toritsuka know, then it was not in Kusuo's place to enlighten Toritsuka. Toritsuka had independently interacted with Kuusuke so Kusuo divested all responsibility of that interaction.

Nendo and Kaido must have known because how else did their respective mothers had ever allowed them to fly to London in the middle of a school week? That would have been reasonable. Again, Kusuo only recalled them mentally referred to Kuusuke as "Saiki-kun's older brother" or "Aibou's older brother." Again, that could have been a habit of politeness. His friends were not completely unaware highschoolers.

Kaido's mom seemed to remember Kuusuke, but only as "the Cambridge University graduate," never by name, despite being told Kuusuke's name at least once by mom.

Had Kusuo deliberately suggested to people not to know about Kuusuke? Kusuo's powers were unpredictable at times and may have worked without him deliberately wanting it to. If he did, then Kusuo did have a relatively protective reason for it. Kuusuke's innate nature was simply terrifying to normal people. As much as Kusuo found his friends as annoyances at times, he thought that subjugating them to the burden of knowing Kuusuke would probably be a form of torture.

But would his mind control abilities be working out at Kumagoro and Kumi's town in the sticks? Kuusuke did live there for a while. Even there, Kuusuke was known as "the Saiki's grandson" outside the family and never by his given name.

What about all those people who gave Kusuo instructions in the scavenger hunt? Kusuo had noted that the people who came to give him instructions were ignorant of the person who was paying them. Even the person who was supposed to give him a card based on the word in that avant-garde statue seemed unaware of the word until Kusuo said it, which in the context of Kusuo's constant telepathy, should have not been possible. Everyone that he interacted with simply did whatever they were told, as if compelled by an unknown force, without knowing why.

And why would he consider Kuusuke's innate nature to be terrifying? Kuusuke had always acted so immature, like a kid who never grew up, always wanting to play some sort of game, looking down at humanity like a discarded toy ripe for burnable trash day. To Kusuo, his older brother was a necessary inconvenience that he, the younger brother, must suffer, be responsible for, due to the misfortune of birth.

The more Kusuo thought about the details, the more disturbed he became, the fuzzier his head got. Was this a side effect of ESP overuse? Was this a side effect of seeing Kuusuke's body becoming embers? Of how disturbed he felt when that happened? Of how unexpected and unexplained it was?

He felt that he was at the cliff of understanding, with something there that prevented him from scaling that cliff. That something had always been there, for as long as he can remember. It kept him from falling but also kept him from scaling the cliff. It never felt dangerous so he never questioned it. Every time he seemed to reach the top, the that something only caused the sheer face only became taller.

Perhaps he should attempt the cliff of understanding differently, to avoid that something.

"What are your abilities, anyways?" asked Kusuo suddenly, completely ignoring Risa's earlier question.

Grandmother Risa looked at him, as if suddenly realizing that would be a naturally legitimate question to ask. "I have mild empathy and general telepathy. As a medical doctor, it's been useful for bedside manners, for telling if patients are lying about their medication, their condition. I can get an impression of what people are saying with about 3 meters, but I have to touch the person if I want clarity."

That's it? thought Kusuo. What asked further, "So were you listening to me earlier?"

Risa shrugged. "Some. I was focused on your parents. Kuniharu is my son, after all, as gutless as he is. Kurumi is as ditzy as I remembered. Still, they're as lovey-dovey as ever. For that, I am glad for them. Finding steadfast companionship is not an easy task.

"As for you, my sense of you was that you were mildly puzzled, and curious about me. But there's an underlying longing about something, a very deep-seated sadness about you. Otherwise, you're flat, completely disinterested," Risa shifted her sitting position a little bit. "It's hard to tell, since telepathy against telepathy will create blind spots. In theory, I could speak to you with telepathy, but I don't broadcast well and the reception is a toss-up. Plus, I did not wish to burden you since you were burning earlier."

So that may have explained why he could not detect Risa's thoughts earlier.

"By the way, what is your telepathy range?" asked Risa, "It seems relatively large. Is it like...10 meters or so?"

"Is that normal?"

"It's wide enough to disturb my boy's sleep," said Risa, sadness in her voice returning. "Miha's range was about 50 meters. She went insane from just that."

Kusuo almost wanted to laugh. He took back his nostalgic feeling of belonging from earlier. He was still abnormal, even in the context of a lineage of espers.

God really hated him.

And Kuusuke was still goddamn right.

She looked at him curiously. The reaction was unexpected. "Why? What is your range?"

"Right now? Without the ring, about 100 meters." The new generation of limiters did help reduce the reception.

Risa's looked concerned. "...What? How are you even you sane?"

"It's probably because I never knew anything different. It was in the kilometers before I was ten."

An incredulous look was on Risa's face, her eyes looked like they were about to bug out.

Kusuo did not seem to notice as he looked to the first generation limiter on his night stand, his thoughts going to its initial creation. "But the limiter greatly reduced it." The long needle seemed menacing, like lobotomy picks.

It seemed nuts now to think that he had trusted Kuusuke enough, who was a mere thirteen-year-old at the time, to allow the drilling of permanent holes in his skull, through the dura and insert these thick needles into the frontal lobe of the brain. The event must have not occurred in view of their parents since his parents seemed to only recall the final assembly with the signal amplifier of the pink ball.

Risa seemed to pick up the mystery before her, "Limiter? What is that?"

Kusuo pointed to the first generation limiter that was sitting on his nightstand. "Devices that suppresses my ESP. If what you've said so far is true, then I'm here becaue of these things. When I first got them, some of my ESP stopped working completely. In time, they always came back."

"There are such things as devices that reduce ESP?" asked Risa, seemingly not comprehending.

"Or erase them, at least temporarily," Kusuo indicated. He looked to the location of his second-generation limiter, which he had stored in his desk, along with the box of spare third-generation limiters.

Except for the location where his desk was now sat a semi-organized debris pile of the miscellaneous items from the Cambridge office fire.

Kusuo sucked in a breath.

Shit.

For far too often in recent times, Kusuo had to force down another intense feeling of distress. Strings of cuss words floated in the forefront of his mind, threatening to come out. He could barely put down the creeping anger at himself. How could he had been so careless?

Risa seemed to detect this. "What's going on Kusuo-kun. You seemed alarmed...Why are you turning translucent?"

Without any explanation, Kusuo disappeared.

Risa stared at the empty air where Kusuo had previously occupied, uncomprehending for nearly 30 seconds.

Invisibility and teleportation, thought Risa, and with such ease! He must be a very strong esper indeed! What an astonishing young man.

Kusuo reappeared soon enough, only a couple of minutes later. He now stood in the middle of the room, looking at the pile of mess, shaking his head, looking like he was about to hyperventilate. "This is not good," said Kusuo, "This is so not good."

"What's so not good," asked Risa.

Kusuo squinted his eyes shut, "My limiters. The one that erases ESP temporarily, along with the spare limiters that I use now. They were in my desk drawers," Kusuo took a few seconds to breath before he continued. "A few days ago, I was at a fire. Things were going bad and I was in such a hurry to leave that I was not careful with teleportation. I accidentally apported all this crap back with me so my desk was apported to that damn office fire."

"Laws of equal exchange," muttered Risa.

Kusuo did not disagree. "I've just gone to check. The fire had completely leveled the building. The rubble is still warm. I've looked and looked with x-ray vision." Kusuo shook his head, as if such act could stop the reality.

"I'm certain that those limiters have been destroyed." Kusuo did not utter the next thought. And without Kuusuke, there won't be anyone to fix the current one or create new ones.

Kusuo really was screwed.