It had been a couple weeks since the thing with the Eighth Division.

It had been a couple weeks since Shigeko lost control and destroyed an entire division compound…or at least a section of it making the entire place structurally unsound.

It had been a couple weeks since Sho awakened…..even though he was only eight and he would have gotten the rest of his powers on his own in time.

It had been a couple of weeks since he ran his mouth at the most powerful, most dangerous, and most idiotic man in the world…not that he didn't deserve it. Suzuki had always been something of an idiot when it came to looking past himself. He deserved what he got and more. Even though he'd come very close to getting himself killed running his mouth like that….

It had been a couple months since he'd last checked in with Masami. That was good. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to her. He had let her son get tortured until he unlocked the rest of his powers…powers that would have come in on their own by the time he became an adult. He had let her daughter lose control and kill seventeen people on accident. He had let her husband torture their son, both of their children, and there was nothing that he could have done about it. There was nothing….nothing that he could have done.

Poor Sho.

The kid was fine, it seemed, though Fukuda had only seen him from a distance. The kids hadn't called him in to heal them so he hadn't had any reason to go near them. He was on thin ice with Suzuki. He had used the word 'murder' and Fukuda knew that he did not speak in hyperbole. Mentioning his parents had been crossing a line. He knew that he had been crossing a line. He just needed something, anything, to shock Suzuki off the train of thought that he had been on. Punishing Shigeko for what had happened would have been the worst thing that he could have done. She was only eight…

Even if it didn't feel like it.

Fukuda remembered what had happened. He doubted that he was capable of forgetting what he had seen that day….what he had felt. What it felt like to be in the middle of….that. It was his own powers that had saved him. He was a difficult man to hurt. Well it had been painful but he healed very quickly. Suzuki had even been kind enough to pull him into his barrier….even though it had eventually broken under the sheer psychic force that had been Shigeko. She hadn't meant to do anything….and that was the worst part. The most terrifying part. An eight year old girl, not even nine yet, had managed to do…that.

She seemed fine.

He had only seen her from a distance, too. There was a lot of work reassigning people, salvaging data, moving awakenings to the Seventh Division…it had taken superhuman effort to get it all running smoothly in such a short amount of time but that was what they were after all. Superhuman. Even if it didn't always feel like it. In the face of overwhelming power, the kind that was contained in that little girl, he had felt like little more than a normal person. He was little more than a normal person compared to her. They all were. She had power that he had only seen once before…in her father. The father who had been ready to knock her into next week for losing control of that power. She was fine now, from what he had gathered, she and Sho had been set up in another house and she hadn't been knocked into next week. Judging by how normal she had looked the last time he had seen her, getting onto the plane that took them across the world once again, she had been normal. Happy even. Suzuki had done something intelligent for once in his life and kept his mouth shut about what had happened. Good.

Nobody, especially not a child, needed that hanging over their head.

And she was just that, a child, even though with each passing year it was harder and harder not to see her as her father in miniature. They had similar mannerisms, ways of speaking, even ways of carrying themselves. It was easy to think of her as him but he…he forced himself to see her for the child she was. The child who had managed to destroy an entire section of the compound just because she had been scared. A child who, apparently, had no memory of what had happened.

Good. That was good.

He knew that she didn't remember what had happened, he could tell, because she was still up and about like normal. He knew her and he knew the wreck she would have been if Suzuki had gone along with his idiotic plan of telling her what had happened and punished her for it. That poor kid….Suzuki had been through the same thing and he would have punished her for it. Talking about his parents, the day he had lost them, had been a low blow…but things were ok between them. He was still alive so that was as good of an indication as anything that he was forgiven for his outburst.

If it was one thing that Suzuki was good at it was pretending that bad things had never happened.

They had the same relationship they'd always had, the same dynamic that they'd had since their school days, and it suited the both of them just fine. He kowtowed and Suzuki bossed him around. Fukuda hated he man as much as ever, who wouldn't, but Suzuki had the emotional range of a teaspoon. He couldn't see past his own self. He had no idea just how much Fukuda loathed him, now, for what he had done to Sho. To Shigeko and Sho.

To what Suzuki had made him an accomplice in.

But there was nothing that he could do about what had happened now. There was no sense in challenging a man who could hurt him faster than he could heal. There was no sense in ending up dead and leaving those kids truly alone in the world. He still hadn't found a way to get Sho to Masami…and now there was no way. Not with Sho's aura being what it was. Anonymity had been his first defense and now it was gone. He had failed Masami….and those kids…

But he could at least make their lives a little more cheery.

Which was what brought him to their front door, Claw's front door, on that cold December day with a gift tucked under each arm. A new doll for Shigeko and a new sketchbook for Sho. Well technically he had been called in because, according to Sho, a tree had fallen on Shigeko…though he had seen her in the background of the call and aside from a few scrapes and bruises she had been fine. What did he know, maybe a tree really had fallen on her and that was just what the result was.

Judging by the amount of pine needles in the snow, the crater in the ground where a young spruce tree had grown, and the trail of dirt and pine needles made in the snow and leading towards the front door he had a few reasons to believe Sho's story. Even if it wasn't true he had to come when summoned. Even if he wasn't sure if he even wanted to be there. Even if he had no idea what he was supposed to say to these kids. Sorry wouldn't be enough. If he said sorry then they would want to know what he was sorry about. There was the obvious, not protecting them, but also….also things that they were too young to know about. His hand in getting their mother away from their household. His hand in destroying their parents' facade of a marriage. All of it. Things that they, at eight and almost nine, were not at all ready to hear. Things that they were never going to be ready to hear. Things that he was never going to be ready to tell them.

He wanted to turn back.

But he couldn't. The minute his feet reached the last step of the landing, the minute he was bathed in the glow of the porchlight, the door opened. He saw the aura before he saw the kid it was attached to. Red. Bright red. Fruit punch red. Ironic because fruit punch would probably kill the kid the aura was attached to. Anything with citric acid would kill Sho. He had lived through something that killed a good percentage of the grown man who were thrown into it but something as simple as a grapefruit could send him into a deadly allergic reaction.

Life was weird that way.

"Fukuda, come quick! There's blood everywhere!" said Sho. Fukuda felt himself being pulled forward by his mid-section. Sho's doing. He had a hand out and he was pulling Fukuda so hard that he had no choice to follow. The hallway was filled with dirt. Fukuda almost felt bad about kicking his shoes off in the makeshift genkan. The feeling only intensified when he felt the pain of pine needles poking through his socks.

It smelled like Christmas in that borrowed house.

Piney. Very piney. Sort of like how his house had smelled when he was a child. His parents had always been into getting real trees. It was odd, sort of, that the kids would have wanted a real tree since Masami had always put up an artificial one. It was the same tree every year, Fukuda remembered, but Masami had always made it look amazing. He wondered what she was up to. Enjoying her Christmas? Enjoying it with someone? Or simply wallowing in the fact that her children were an ocean away and she had no way of knowing that they were safe…

They weren't.

And not just because of the pine tree standing precariously in the middle of this borrowed living room. It was too tall for the room it was in. The top was bent at a ninety degree angle as it touched the ceiling. It was resting in a corner, gravity seemed to be trying it's best to pull it down to the ground, and it was covered in paper chains and ornaments. The kids' doing. Shigeko sat down on the ground in front of it covered in light scratches and bruises.

"Hi Fukuda. You didn't have to come all the way out here, I'm fine, but it's nice seeing you." Said Shigeko. She was eight now, too old to run up to him and jump into his arms or wrap herself around his leg and beg him to play with her. She was too old…that was it. If she knew what had happened then…then she would have been a wreck. But no, she was just sitting in front of the Christmas tree cutting out round pieces of construction paper. A box of crayons laid opened beside her, it's contents spilled out over the rug like so much debris….body parts….guts….blood….

"…I did it all by myself! Big sis didn't even have to help me once, you know. Not once! She actually tried to stop me you know. Like she could have." Said Sho as he grabbed his arm and shook him. Fukuda was thrown from his memories, from his mind, by the feeling of a gift slipping from his grasp. He watched, he waited, for it to hit the hardwood floor.

It didn't.

He could see Sho's aura. Well he had been seeing nothing but Sho's aura, his passive aura, but now it was active. It was active and he was holding the present in front of his face and shaking it. His hands were at his sides, mostly, though he was making hand motions. Shigeko made no such hand motions when she took the other present from his grasp and placed it under the tree.

"Thank you, Fukuda, we'll be sure to open them on Christmas Day like we're supposed to." Said Shigeko. She had stopped what she was doing and now she was looking at him. She was making full eye contact now just like…well he had made eye contact with her that day…and he had seen nothing behind her eyes. Like now. Her eyes gave nothing away. They guarded her secrets, her thoughts, her emotions. The eyes were the windows to the soul but it seemed that she had invested in a set of curtains.

Just like her father had.

"I'm going to open mine now and there's nothing that you can do to stop me, big sis!" said Sho. Fukuda could see it, the brief tug of war that followed. Shigeko won. There was no contest. She didn't have to move a muscle to win. She simply took his present and put it under the tree. She lined it up with similarly sized boxes. Boxes labeled 'Son' and 'Daughter'.

"You know the rules." Said Shigeko

"Yeah, and I don't care. It's my present and I will do whatever I want with it. If I want to open it right now I will and if I want to save it forever like you did with those White day chocolates then I'll do that too…but I won't. I chose to open it right now right this very second." Said Sho

"Not until Christmas Sho, you remember what dad said. Our cultural rituals are important." Said Shigeko. Yeah, that sounded like something that Suzuki would have said. He had gone on about it, before, back when they had been younger and Claw had been nothing more than the two of them and Suzuki's bedroom. It was important to persevere people's cultures so that they had less of an incentive to rise up and kill you…not that anyone even stood a chance against him…

"You're not the boss of me." Said Sho. There was a flash of red, active aura, and then Shigeko wound up sprawled out on the ground. For a moment Fukuda could not breathe. He could not move. He could not think. He pulled his aura in close, very close, before some part of him remembered to extend it over to Sho. Not that it would do either of them any good. He was not psycho kinetic. He could not put up a barrier. He was at the mercy of whatever happened next.

Shigeko sat up.

"I am, Sho, dad said so. Also you shouldn't use your powers like that. I'm glad that you finally have your powers, your for real powers, but you shouldn't use them to push people. I don't use my powers to push you. I've never used my powers to push anyone. If you want to push me then you can come up and push me the normal way. I don't mind that." Said Shigeko. Fukuda let out the breath that he had been holding. He felt all the muscles in his body, at one point tense and ready to carry him away should he have needed it, relax. His aura came back in close where it belonged.

That had been a close one.

When they had been younger Suzuki had lost control. He had a temper and it seemed like every little thing set him off. If someone had pushed Suzuki, young Suzuki, Fukuda shuddered to think what the result would have been. Hell, if someone had the nerve to push him today unless it was in one of those 'prove yourself' situations Fukuda doubted that there would have been enough of the poor bastard left to heal. No, they'd probably have to bury the poor sod in a shoe box.

Shigeko had taken that rather well.

"…whatever. I don't care anyway." Muttered Sho. He crossed his arms and looked down at his socks. Fukuda was struck with a sense of…sadness…for the kid. He had gone through all of that and still his older sister eclipsed him. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair…and now he sounded like the one who was eight, not Sho….though even if it was a childish statement it was also a fact.

Nothing about Suzuki Sho's life had been fair up to this point.

But Fukuda could not dwell on it, he had come there for a reason after all, and he had to fulfil that reason to justify why he had been there. Suzuki….he had overstepped one too many times. He couldn't just be in the house when he came back, whenever that was, he had to…to get a move on and heal the very superfluous looking injuries that covered Shigeko. Even though she seemed fine. Even though she was watching him with those haunting eyes….her father's eyes….

He healed her.

He had her stand up and his healed the injuries she pointed out. The tree had fallen on her…but only the branches, it seemed, when Sho had pulled it out of the ground with his powers. They had made sure to leave the roots as attached as possible so that they could replant it before they left again…and Fukuda focused on that. On the fact that Shigeko had taken care to make sure that the tree's main roots were as in tact as possible…even though that was why the house was full of dirt. Suzuki would never have done that. He would never had gotten a real tree, anyway, and he had never allowed Masami one either.

Pointless and messy, he had said.

Shigeko was not her father…even if it felt like it. Even if she was capable of the same sort of destruction that he was. Even if, at any moment, she could have exploded and killed them all. She was just a kid…and she wouldn't stay that way for long. She had never been too prone to tantrums…but she was just a kid, not a teenager, and in a few short years she'd be a teenager…and so would Sho….

And he was in no way looking forward to that time.

But they were still children, now, and that was….better. They were still young. They weren't as young as they used to be, he used to be able to pick them each up with one arm, but they were still young. Shigeko was still young enough that she could be enough of her own person that….that they wouldn't have another Suzuki on their hands to deal with…and Sho was still young enough that he might…he might have been able to get Sho away from this place. Claw. Away from his father. Back to his mother where he belonged…somehow. Even with his aura being as bright as an adult's. Even with powers that he may not have had full control over….

Fukuda did not know.

"Fukuda, stay and make ornaments with us. Come on, we're making Christmas!" shouted Sho. He tugged on Fukuda's arm and jumped up and down. The house shook with each jump he made…and not just because it was a cheaply made prefab. No, his aura…his powers…filled the space…like they would fill every space…like they would make it impossible to hide him….and now he was worth coming after in his father's mind….

"You don't have to stay, Fukuda, I know that you're busy. I'm ok now. No concussions, contusions, or abrasions. You can go if you want to." Said Shigeko. She said it so calmly and levelly….it was almost like talking to what he imagined a young Suzuki would have been….but she was not him. She was not even his daughter, biologically, but still…

He had a choice to make.

He chose to leave.

It had been a couple of weeks after what happened at the Eight Division….and not enough time had passed.