Mob had been alone for too long.

Dad left in either the middle of the night or the early morning, she didn't know which, all she knew was that she had woken up to an empty bed. Dad's side of the bed had been cold. He'd been gone for a while by the time she woke up. She wished that he hadn't gone. Waking up alone…it have been scary. Being alone was scary.

Still no Sho.

Sho was still…wherever he was. He was gone and she was all alone. She ate her breakfast alone, half a jug of milk and half a box of cereal, and even though it had probably been delicious she hadn't been able to taste it. She didn't like it, eating alone, without dad or Sho…or mom. Now instead of their being half of the Suzuki family there was a quarter of it. Dad had left her all alone all day.

Still no Sho.

It felt wrong. Being without her little brother…it felt so wrong. She knew that this would not be forever. Dad said that it wouldn't be for forever. She knew that Sho was not going to die. Dad had specifically said that Sho was not going to die…even though he had also been the only one to use the word 'die'…and also that meant that what he was going through killed people….like that time they had seen….yeah. This was…she didn't like to think about it.

But there was no way at all for her to take her mind off of it.

She tried watching TV and playing with her toys and playing videogames and even taking a nap even though she hadn't done that since she was very little. She just wanted to take her mind off of the fact that Sho's aura had been so bright…and now it was gone….and that could have meant that he was done with…whatever it was that they were doing to him…or not. It could have meant that he was done being….a being. Done with being a person and he could have turned into a spirit and-

And Mob had ended up losing control and messing up her room.

And she didn't even feel bad about it, not really. This may have been the room that she was sleeping in but it was not her room. Not even in the sense that her room was back at the castle. No, this was not her room because there was no Sho in it. She shared a room with Sho. That was how it had been since the day Sho had been born. She shared a room with her little brother. She loved her little brother. She loved her little brother so much…..and now he was gone. And this was not her room. If it wasn't THEIR room then it was not HER room.

She had lost control.

Dad would be angry with her but that was a good thing. Then maybe he wouldn't be angry with Sho. He was always so angry with Sho. Even now he might have been. Even though Sho had been put through….whatever it was that they were putting him through. She didn't even know. All she knew was that he was supposed to come out the other side just as strong as she and Dad were. She didn't know why he cared about that. She knew that, if it came down to it, she would rather lose her powers for the rest of forever than lose her little brother. Her powers were just another part of her, like how she liked cats and couldn't run very fast but played a good game of Chinese checkers, according to dad anyway, so really if she had to lose her powers then she would have given them up in a heartbeat. For her little brother, of course, because she could not just get rid of her powers for no reason. Dad would never have allowed that. He said that their powers were the only things in this world that mattered about them. That their powers made them special, made them the best sort of people in the world, and that

What good were her powers, anyway?

She didn't even know. She'd had these powers since the day she had been born, dad had said. For as long as she could remember she had been able to do things that most people couldn't. Dad said that she was rare because girls couldn't usually do the stuff she did and also kids weren't supposed to be as strong as she was. She was a prodigy, dad had said, and she didn't want to be one. Not when it meant that Sho got hurt. What was the point of being extraordinary when your little brother was ordinary?

There was no point.

There was no point to being Suzuki Shigeko and she did not know why Sho was putting himself through…whatever it was…to become more like her. Dad said that fate gave them their powers. Dad said that fate gave them these powers and made everyone else extras in the world. That meant that Sho was an extra because he wasn't like her and dad. Mob wished that she were an extra in the world. Mob. Not Shigeko. She didn't much want to be Shigeko anymore. She would rather have been Mob.

She would rather have been a Mob character….then Sho could have been a main character….and then none of this would have been happening.

It started happening again, seeing Sho's aura, around when she had gotten so bored and lonely that she had picked up one of Sho's drawing books and tried to start drawing a picture of…something. She didn't know what it would be yet beyond a series of red circles. Sho did this sometimes, he just started drawing and said that it would become whatever it became, so maybe this was ok…even though Sho had told her a million and one times never to touch his drawing stuff without his permission. Permission he almost never gave. But this was ok. He would be mad at her. It was ok if he was mad at her. If he was mad at her at least that would have meant that he would have been back.

For a moment she thought that he had been back.

But no, that was just his aura doing that thing again, which meant that they were back at it. Whatever 'it' was. Well 'It' was a scary clown that lived in the sewers and ate people….but that was just a movie. Sho had wanted to see that movie. That had been a fun day. They had been in the middle of nowhere and all that there was to do was a mall with a movie theatre and a play place and Fukuda had been able to take them to there, well dad hadn't known, and they had watched all the movies that the theatre had in one day. Mob didn't even care that they had been in English. Her and Sho's English had gotten good enough that they could sort of understand, well more than sort of, what was going on. It had been a good day even though one time Fukuda took Sho to the bathroom but she had to stay behind to guard the popcorn and also she was a girl and not allowed in the boy's bathroom because the only boy she was allowed to see naked was her little brother and she hadn't been too scared at first but then they had been gone for a while and she thought that they had forgotten about her and left even though if she focused she could still see their auras. They hadn't left her, Fukuda had just gotten lost and he wouldn't take directions from Sho. He had gotten lost, so lost, that they had ended up in the parking lot.

It was hard being away from Sho then and it was hard being away from him now.

Actually it was harder, now, because they were back to doing stuff to him….and Mob did not want that. She wanted her little brother. She didn't care if he got powers or not and neither should he have. He already sort of had powers and he could do a lot more than most of the people in the whole entire world could do. Fate had made a terrible mistake, giving her most of the power and giving almost none of it to Sho, and she wished that fate had been more careful….and also she knew, from Brave, that you could change your fate but it was more trouble than it was worth and also your mom turned into a bear.

Which was probably not what was happening.

But what did she know? She had no idea what was happening to her little brother and…and it was making her lose control…and she hated being alone…she wanted nothing more than to be with him…so why not be with him? Well besides the fact that dad had told her stay put, of course. Dad said that Sho had to go through this alone and that her being there would only complicate matters. But she didn't see how being there for her little brother could complicate things. She didn't see any reason why she shouldn't have been there for her little brother.

Dad said no.

Dad would be mad at her…but she didn't really care. She didn't care if he got so mad that he hit her again. He hadn't hit her in a long time…but that didn't matter. She didn't care if he hit her just as hard and just as many times as when he hit Sho. She just wanted to…to see if Sho was ok. To be there for him. If she got punished for that then she would take whatever dad threw at her.

She put on her shoes and left.

"Miss Suzuki? Do you need something?" asked the copy paste aura guy outside of the door. They were everywhere. She was mostly used to them. Mostly. There was will something weird about people who had the same aura. Kind of like the first time she ever saw identical twins in real life. She didn't stare, though, because that would have been rude. Besides, those guys stared enough as it was.

"I'm going to go check on my brother." Said Mob. She wondered if they would try and stop her. They never tried to stop her and Sho from doing anything. Even that time when they were staying at their apartment in Munich and Sho tried to climb out the window and on to the roof…though dad never said that they WEREN'T allowed to climb out the windows. Not like now.

She was not allowed to leave.

"The President said that you were supposed to stay put." Said the guy. Mob didn't know his name. Mob didn't know any of their names and they never gave their names when she asked. Dad told them not to. Mob didn't get why. It would have been easier to get to know them if she knew their names. Though it would have been harder to do what she was doing now, deliberately disobeying dad, if she knew the name of the guy who was going to tell on her.

"I know what he said but I want to check on my little brother." Said Mob. She took a step forward and waited to see if she was stopped. No, she wasn't stopped, just watched. They watched her a lot, stared at her, and dad said that it was because of how her aura was. How bright it was. How strong she was. She didn't much want to be stared at.

"I'm going to start walking now." Said Mob. She kept on walking and was met with no protest. She wondered if she had to listen to them if they told her to do something. She was a kid and kids were supposed to listen to adults…but adults listened to her. Not to Sho that often, when Sho told them to do something they always looked at her like they needed her permission, and that was kind of weird. Maybe it was because she was a year older than Sho. Maybe that one year made all the difference. She wondered what it would have been like if Sho had been the older brother and she had been the little sister. Would he have gone looking for her?

Would he have even been in the position to go looking for her?

Would she have still been more powerful than Sho even if she had been younger? Would Sho have been mean to her even if he had been older? Would he have taken care of her the way she took care of him? Did she take care of him because she was older or because she was a girl? Dad said that girls were better at things like that, taking care of people, but sometimes Mob didn't feel like she was very good at taking care of Sho. Like now. She had let this happen to him…

She had no idea what was happening to him.

She could feel his aura and she walked towards it. People stopped and stared at her but nobody tried to stop her. People said hi to her as she passed, well some of them did, and they just said her name. Miss Suzuki. Suzuki-san. She was not a grownup. People did not have to call her that. She was Shigeko-chan….even though nobody called her that. Sho called her big sis and dad called her Daughter. Even when they weren't speaking Japanese he still called her Daughter. Sho still called her big sis, too, even when they weren't speaking Japanese.

Her name was Suzuki Shigeko.

But she preferred Mob. But what she preferred did not matter. She'd only be Daughter soon…at least that was what it felt like. There was dread in her stomach sitting heavy as the time she and Sho ate that brick of chocolate. It was heavy and it made her kind of sick. If something happened to Sho then there would be nobody around to call her big sis…unless dad had another kid. Unless mom came back and then she and dad had another kid like she had wanted when she was younger. Would they do that? If something happened to Sho would they…would they have another kid? Another little brother? Would they call the new little brother Sho and pretend like there had never been a first Sho? Like the time back in first grade when the class fish died and the teacher just got a new one with the same name and they all pretended like it was the same fish even though it so clearly was not?

People were not fish.

And nothing was going to happen to Sho anyway. She wouldn't let anything happen to Sho. She'd die first. The thought comes to her suddenly. She could die. Sho could die. She knew that they could die, dad said that even they were not immortal, but it had always been just a thing that she knew happened but never thought about. Now she was thinking about it. Never having Sho by her side again. Him turning into a spirit or just…passing on. Her passing on. Passing on to whatever was on the other side. She had no idea what was on the other side and neither did dad…and she did not want to find out and she certainly did not want Sho to find out either.

So she kept walking.

She followed his aura through the cold, grey, hallways. These were the same ones that she and Sho had trick or treated down on Give Me Candy Day, which was a much better fit for that day than Halloween, but they were not exactly the same. No. The people didn't have candy this time and they didn't look happy. In fact there were very few people there at all and the ones that were there seemed sad. They spoke in hushed tones and shut up completely when she walked by. They went back to talking as she passed.

"…a kid…."

"…his kid…."

"….no, that's his kid…"

"….cruel…"

"….can't take much more of this…."

Mob didn't stay in one spot long enough to eavesdrop…and she should not have been eavesdropping in the first place. She wondered what they were talking about….and she hoped that they weren't talking about Sho. She hoped that whatever was happened to Sho was so simple and ordinary that it wasn't even worth talking about. She hoped that when she came upon him he would be annoyed and shove her or pull her hair and tell her that she was being annoying and to go away.

She wouldn't have minded it If he was mean.

She just wanted him back. She could feel dad's aura, too, and she tried to pull her aura in close so he wouldn't sense her. There was a lot of Sho here. A lot of Sho and a lot of the awakened and a lot of Fukuda as well. That was bad. If she was feeling this much of Fukuda then that meant that he had been doing a lot of healing…and that meant that Sho had needed a lot of healing…and that was bad. That meant that he had been getting hurt….

She opened a set of heavy metal doors.

She knew this place. This was the place that she and Sho had gone to all those months ago. She made herself small, she pulled her aura in close, and she tried her best at sneaking around. Everyone, including dad, was crowded around something that she could not see. She didn't know what it was but it had their full attention…and also it felt a lot like Sho…

"This is your son!" Fukuda was practically shouting at dad. Mob pressed her back against the wall even though dad was more likely to notice her aura before anything else. Fukuda was yelling at dad…almost yelling…and nobody talked to dad like that. He was the President. Nobody could talk to him like that…then they would get punished….if they talking to him like that….

"I'm aware of that fact." Said Dad. She could tell that he was mad. His aura was mad, there was a lot of yellow in there, and his hands were clenched into fists. Mob covered her mouth, she was breathing really hard, even though she knew that it wouldn't help. Dad would notice her aura before anything else…even though the whole place was covered in Sho's aura…

So much red.

And it felt weird. It felt like he was there but he also was not there. Well he was there but not there beside her…where he was meant to be. She was supposed to be there for him…and she could feel tears tickling at the corners of her eyes…and she could feel her control slipping…but she could not lose control. Not now.

Not ever.

"He's only seven years old-" said Fukuda. Mob almost told him that Sho was eight now. That this was the weird time of the year when she and Sho's ages lined up. She was born in May and he was born in December and…and she almost wanted to explain that to Fukuda…but she didn't. She didn't. She couldn't because then dad would know that she was there. He still hadn't noticed her, by some miracle, and she was not trying to…to be noticed.

"Eight. He just had a birthday." Said Dad

"Fine. He's eight fucking years old and you've got him in one of those-" said Fukuda. Mob gasped, just a little, because she had never heard Fukuda say bad words before. He was in for it. Dad hated it when people said bad words. He hated a lot of things but he especially hated that.

"Do not question me." Said Dad. Mob nodded. Fukuda needed to listen to dad. Nothing good ever came from not listening to dad…not that she was about to start telling Fukuda that he needed to listen to dad. She was deliberately disobeying dad right then and there at that second….

"I've known you for over thirty years, Suzuki Touichirou, and I never once thought that you were capable of-" said Fukuda. He was shaking, now, and his aura was super visible…but not as visible as Dad's…or Sho's…or hers….

She pulled her aura in close.

"You are on dangerous ground right now. Stop talking." Said Dad in that slow, low, sort of tone he used whenever Sho was being bad and arguing with him. She had never heard that talk to another grown up like that. He was mean to the copy paste aura guys but he never talked to them like that…and she wished that she hadn't heard that. She wished that she was back in the safety of her room…but that was selfish. She had come to check on Sho and…and now she had…and-and-and-

And she got the feeling that he was not ok.

And it was making her control slip. It was making her bangs float up high behind her head. It was making her aura be visible. It was making her shake….and making…making the room…was she making the room shake or was dad making the room shake? Or was Fukuda making the room shake? Or was Sho making the room shake? She didn't know.

"No! I can't just stand idly by and let you-" said Fukuda. He reached over to touch dad…which was something that nobody was supposed to do…and then his hand stopped…because dad put up a barrier…and Mob put up a barrier, too, because….because she didn't even know. It just happened. When she lost control things just happened.

"You can and you will. You're a healer so heal. That's all I need you to do. When I want your opinion I'll ask for it." Said Dad

"Well you're getting it! You are getting my goddamned opinion whether you like it or not, Suzuki Touichirou." Said Fukuda. He was shaking, still, and his aura was shaking too. There were too many…to many colors…way too many colors….and hers were there too….and she felt….she felt so….

She felt like she was going to explode.

"No, I won't be. Now shut up and heal my son when he needs it. Beyond that I do not need you." Said dad

"Bullshit. This whole thing is pure and utter bullshit. You know that these things don't work. You know what these things do to grown men! This is an eight year old boy and you've been torturing him-" Said Fukuda

"Shut up." Said dad. Then Fukuda hit the ground. The copy paste aura guys and the lab coat guys pretend that they couldn't see anything. She could tell because they looked and then looked away. That was what she did whenever Sho ended up on the ground. She closed her eyes. She didn't want to see this. This was…a lot.

A lot.

She was shaking. She was shaking and she just…she could not keep it together….even though she had to. Even thoughb dad was right there and if she lost control…even though he could probably see her now…she tried to move, to move her feet, to move away from there and back to her bed where she could just hide…

But her feet would not work.

"Daughter. Explain." Said Dad. Mob could feel herself being pulled forward. Her feet dragged against the ground. Her aura pushed out. Her powers pushed out. Dad let her go.

"I-I-I was looking for Sho." said Mob. Fukuda was very pale, there, and he was opening his mouth like he was about to say something even though no sound was coming out. Mob reached behind her and pulled her braids down. She could feel dad looking at her. She could feel his aura resting on her…and it hurt…

But not as much as Sho's aura.

It was hitting her now…and she had no idea why it hurt….but it did….and she just wanted to…to go…to go away…and that was selfish. She was selfish. She was selfish for not wanting to be there when Sho so clearly needed her to be there for him. She needed to be there for Sho…but she wanted to run away.

"Shigeko! You need to go-" said Fukuda. She nodded. She didn't know if she had to listen to him but she was choosing to listen to him. She was being looked at. Everyone was looking at her and…and she just….did not want that. She wanted to go. She wanted to run away…

Even though Sho needed her.

"You do not command my children, Fukuda, do not over step. Daughter, you have deliberately disobeyed me-" said dad. Mob nodded. She could feel Sho's aura. She could feel a tear escaping from her eyes and hitting the top of her shoe. She stared at it. She felt dad trying to push her down. She didn't move. She didn't want to move. She didn't want dad to push her down. She hadn't done anything to deserve dad pushing her down. Sho was her little brother and dad had told her that she had to be there for him, to take care of him, and that was what she was doing. She was being there for her little brother.

"I was just worried about Sho!" said Mob even though she knew not to raise her voice to dad. She knew not to disobey dad. She knew that she had to be good, to be a good daughter, but she…she just….it felt wrong. It felt wrong to leave Sho there…and it felt wrong to disobey dad, too….

Power was nothing without control.

"Do not raise your voice to me. Go back to your room. I'll deal with you later." Said Dad. Mob could feel more tears streaking their way down her cheeks. She wanted…she wanted her little brother back…and he was right there….but there were so many people around that she could not even see what, exactly, it was that he was in…

She was crying.

But she was not leaving.

Because she wanted…she wanted Sho…she wanted her little brother…and she knew that she had to go. She had to do what she was told. She had to do what she was told, she was being told by both dad and Fukuda that she had to go…and Fukuda even said that she didn't want to see this…even though she didn't know what 'this' was…just that it was bad…

Someone told dad that they were ready to start.

Fukuda begged dad not to.

Mob had no idea what was about to start…but she had a bad feeling about whatever it was…which turned out to be right…because she heard Sho scream after some loud noise started….and-and-and-and-

And she couldn't remember what happened after that.