Masami worried him sometimes.

Suzuki had never remembered his wife taking quite so many naps. She went to bed when the children did…and she just kept on sleeping. She woke up, made them all breakfast, and then went back to their room. That had been hours ago. He had tried to do some work in his office, the boring sort of work that came with running Claw, but the children…they did carry on…

One child on it's own was fine.

Two together were a perpetual motion machine.

Daughter had wandered into his office with her dolls and her tablet and set herself up on the floor in front of his desk. She had said nothing, just carried on with the business of being a little girl. It was not a school day. School hadn't been on a Saturday since he had been a child himself, and that was a pity. He enjoyed the time the children spent at school. He still did not much care for the fact that his children had to mix with the masses, if there had been an all esper school…well he would have been more opened to it, but he did like the fact that they were out of the house for hours at a time.

Sweet peace.

But sometimes too much of it.

Masami napped a lot during the day. She used to practically hang off of him when he was home, before, but now…well now he hardly saw her. He had to seek her out. He was not accustomed to seeking her out. Not that there had been much seeking needed, she mostly just stayed in their room. Sometimes he found her watching television or on her phone but most of the time she was just napping…and he didn't know how to feel about that. She had so many expectations on him in this relationship, expectations that he didn't even fully understand, and he had breathed a sigh of relief when she finally let him be…

But he missed her.

But he knew that he should not have missed her.

He thought of her often when they were apart…and even more, it seemed, when they were together under the same roof. He had never spent this much time under the same roof as his family before. Not for years, anyway, since the children had been much younger. Maybe Masami had just gotten used to him being around. Maybe she had decided that she didn't feel lonely without him anymore. Or maybe she had just taken ill like the children had said.

He hoped that she hadn't.

He really hoped that she hadn't.

He really, really, really hoped that she hadn't.

She was so fragile, his Masami, and she could have so easily been taken from him. He didn't know what he would do without her. She was the only being in this world that could have him completely unraveled…and he didn't much care for that…but he also did. He cared for her so more than any other being on the planet. More so than the children, maybe, or maybe it was different. The needs of his offspring were different than the needs of his partner…or rather what he needed from them. Even Daughter who was not his, not really, had earned some amount of his caring.

Well she was an easy child to care for after all.

On her own. When Son came into the picture it was a different story. Little girls, how he wished that he'd had two little girls. Little girls were quiet creatures. Neat and tidy and obedient and quiet. Quiet. He liked that, how quiet they were. They never ran or jumped or shouted or anything like that. Little boys were different. He couldn't much remember what he had been like as a little boy but he didn't remember being like Son.

Son was his own being entirely.

Son had entered his office even though he knew that he had been forbidden from that entire section of the house. Daughter….the rules could be bent for Daughter. She was harmless. She was quiet. Son hadn't been. He had dragged Daughter away from whatever it was that she had been doing on the floor with her dolls and her tablet. He dragged Daughter into what he had been doing. Some game which involved running, jumping, and shouting.

So much shouting.

Mostly on Son's part. At that point they had both been dismissed from his space if they could not be quiet. Son glared at him as he stomped off. Son had been doing that more and more lately. Maybe because he was getting older. Suzuki had read that children became resentful of their parents as they got older and sought out more independence. He had been quarrelsome lately as well. Even with Daughter. He didn't understand that one bit, how they could go from playing happily one moment to arguing the next. Well it was Son who did the arguing. Daughter never fought back, well he had never seen her fight back, she just tried to diffuse the entire thing before it got out of hand, it seemed.

She was not a quarrelsome child on her own.

Which was why she had been allowed back into his office, eventually. Masami had come out of their room to prepare lunch and then had gone right back in there. She hadn't been asleep the last time he had passed by her door, he could hear the television, and that had been a relief. He had been worried about how much she had been sleeping lately, worried enough even to think of calling Fukuda, and maybe he still worried…and he didn't like to worry. It wasn't a good emotion. Well, all strong emotions were not good emotions, but worry was one of the worst. Worry didn't just make his powers slip through his grasp, no, worry also made him weak. He could not afford to be weak. Not for himself and especially not in front of his children.

They could not afford so see their father being weak.

Especially not Daughter. She was the most like him. She was as strong as he had been as a child. She was the most like him, the greatest reflection of his being, and it may not have been fair but it was the truth. If she saw him being weak not only would she think that she could be weak but she might also think that any future partner of hers could be permitted to be weak as well. That was worse, even, because she could not waste herself on someone weak. She was six, almost seven, and still a child. She would not remain a child for long. Even now he was amazed at how much the children had grown in a few short years. In a few more years they would be adults. Ten years about. Give or take, of course. He didn't have a set timetable or anything, everything was still up in the air, but in about ten years everything would come to fruition. It would be far too late otherwise. He wanted this done before he was fifty so he could have some time to enjoy ruling the world before he got old. Even the man who conquered the world could not stop his own extinction. No, he knew fully well that he would someday die and leave the world to his children and their children and so on and so forth. He also knew that the simplest and easiest way to secure the next generation probably would not happen. He had raised Son and Daughter as his son and daughter after all….and he did have his regrets about that. He had shot himself in the foot when it came to securing the next generation after all.

The pace of life was so fast.

And the time one had to keep apace was so slow.

Even now he was starting to feel his age and he wasn't even forty yet. Thirty nine. Getting older. If he could have done it again he would have met Masami much earlier in life and married her much sooner and had more children than just Son. He had acquired Daughter as quickly as he could so he had no regrets on the timing of that. If he had gotten started on all of this soon he could have found some way to raise Daughter away from the family unit…but no. Even if it would have been better for the next generation…he did enjoy Daughter's company.

As much as he could enjoy the company of someone who was not Masami.

Maybe because Daughter was female. Women and girls tended to be quieter, which he liked, or maybe it was just the fact that Daughter was more like him. Deliberate in her actions. Quiet in her being. There was even some ambition to her, it seemed, though that could only be seen in her enjoyment of school. Every day after school she upended her bag and explained all of her work to him. She took such pride in her school work and her school uniform and even in her school bag. He could not understand it himself but he did admire her ambition and devotion to her goals. He wasn't sure what those goals were but she did give him a running report of how well she was doing at working towards them. He didn't completely understand her but he did enjoy her company.

Her company had actually gotten more enjoyable as she had gotten older.

Soon she would be even older. He had met her at two. Small and prone to tears and losses of control. Now she was almost seven. First Sho's birthday and then hers. Next year she would be eight. Then nine and then ten and so on and so forth until she, eventually, grew up and had children of her own and even then the years would still keep turning for her. One day this would be her office, she was not going to inherit the world but she would do her part to rule it, and her own children would be there at her feet with their toys and tablet computers or whatever it was that children in the future would be playing with.

One day she would be someone's Masami.

No, someone would be her Masami. She was like him. One day she would find her most perfect person and then she would marry him, or not, he just wanted her to find someone. Preferably someone near her on the power scale. Actually that was the only thing that mattered. Someone who came close to being her equal. As close to her equal as another esper could come. He didn't care if the man she chose was Japanese or foreign. If he was Daughter's own age or terribly older or terribly younger. If he was fat or slim, intelligent or moronic, serious or immature, Suzuki did not care. He didn't even care if she had one man or many. She could have a man in every country if she so wanted to, female espers were rare so she could have her pick of the men when she got older, he just wanted her to be with an esper of comparable power. He didn't know why she was the way she was, she was like a flower that had grown out of a pot of dirt, but he did know that if he wanted the Suzuki family dynasty to stand then he would need an entire garden. Suzuki was the true ruler and protagonist of this world solely due to the immense powers fate had bestowed upon him.

Getting power was easy. Holding onto it was the difficult part.

But his children, both of his children, would play their parts. Son and Daughter. Son was going to inherit the world by default. Masami didn't want any more children so it looked like they were just going to have Son. At least he had some power to him. At least he wasn't just like everybody else. Ordinary. Not extraordinary but at least not ordinary. That was better than nothing. Not anything to celebrate, of course, but not as bad as it could be. Son was not as bad as he could have been.

He could learn.

In terms of powers and in terms of behavior.

He had come back even though he knew that he was not wanted. Thankfully he did not continue with his terrible behavior. No, he simply sat down on the floor beside his sister and drew. Silently. That was all that Suzuki has asked for. Some peace and quiet. Son was capable of it. He was capable of sitting with his family and not running, jumping, or quarreling with his sister. There was hope for him yet. He sat and drew quietly until dinner. He enjoyed drawing. Suzuki had some of his drawings, well Masami had tacked up, some of his drawings around his office. He was a fairly good drawer for a child of his age.

Suzuki grew curious as to what his son had been scribbling at down there.

The children had made themselves a little nest on the floor of his office. They had been camped out there all day. Blankets, pillows, toys, and what looked like an entire rainforest worth of paper were sprawled out on the floor of his office. He would have them clean it up later. He reached down with his powers and picked up Son's drawings. He wondered what went on in that head of his…

Animals.

Many drawings of animals. Drawings of cats and dogs, it seemed, and also rodents as well as some more exotic animals…it seemed. Zebras, elephants, lions, tigers. Decent drawings for someone his age. Decent drawings for a five year old. He found nothing wrong with anything that son had drawn. He didn't know much about perspective, it seemed, but Suzuki at least knew what son was going for. Besides, it wasn't like he had any artistic ability. One of the few things in this world that he could not do. Well it was nice to see that Boy was good at something.

Pretty good at something.

He didn't just draw animals, it seemed. He drew the house, well he took some creative liberties, but it was still a nice drawings. The walls weren't quite so high and there weren't any cats sitting on them, that Suzuki knew of, but it was a nice drawing. He also drew his mother and his sister. None of Suzuki…and he didn't know why that made him feel the way he felt. Boy could draw whatever he wanted. Whoever he wanted. He didn't even draw people that well, it seemed, he was much better at drawing animals. Animals and…whatever that was.

It was a series of squares with numbers on them.

Suzuki held up the drawing. It caught the light and…oh. There was writing on the other side. Hiranga and katakana and some, very few, kanji. At least an effort had been made. The writing was…it made sense once he realized what he was looking at. A blueprint it seemed. A blueprint for a cake. The squares were tiers. He wanted a tier or white cake, a tier of yellow cake, a tier of chocolate cake, a tier of something called lava cake, something else called mud cake, a tier of cannoli cake, a tier of cheesecake, and a tier of ice cream cake.

Right. He had a birthday coming up soon, didn't he?

Suzuki stacked the drawings and put them on the ground where he found them. Well, most of them. He kept the drawing of the cake.

Son did have a birthday coming up after all.