Dad could be very scary sometimes.
Like now. Now he was the scariest the Mob and Sho had ever seen him. His eyes were glowing red and his aura…his aura was expanding to fill the whole room. It hurt when his aura touched theirs. It burned, a little, and they tried to pull away but there was nowhere to pull away to. There was nothing that they could do but watch and listen as he stood there with his eyes glowing and his aura big and painful….dad was scary.
Sho thought that he looked like a monster.
Mob tried not to think of anything at all.
"Tell me, how hard is it to keep track of one nine year old boy? How difficult is it to keep one child in a cell until my return? How difficult is it to keep one little boy captive until-" said Suzuki. He was going to lose it. He was dangerously close to losing control. He could feel his aura, it hurt, and he knew that he was mostly energy at that point. He could feel it in his eyes and his body. He wanted to murder just about everyone in that room from the Awakened to the Scars. Even the two in his upper echelon had failed him.
Failure would not be tolerated.
"We're sorry! We're so sorry President Suzuki!" shouted an Awakened. Soon several others joined in pleading for their lives. They had failed the President so, of course, they deserved to die. They just didn't feel like it.
"Do all of you honestly think that kowtowing to me will make up for your many, MANY, failures?" asked Suzuki. He got a smattering of 'yes sirs' and 'we're sorry, sirs' from the Awakened before him. They were all down in a kowtow. It didn't help. If anything it made the whole thing worse. At least his Scars knew better.
"Sir? I take full responsibility for what happened and I assure you that there will be punishment for the sheer incompetence-" said Ishiguro. He glared at anyone and everyone through his mask. This could not stand. They had failed their President and now he was going to demote all of them. He had not fought the President for four hours nonstop just to be kicked back down to the level of a regular Scar. He would have his seat at the top of the world by the President's side and nobody was going to take that away from him.
"As you should. This Division is your responsibility and you could not even keep track of one child. I should take you down where you stand for this. You are not worthy of the title of Division Leader. In fact none of you are worthy of your titles or ranks." Said Suzuki. He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to kill them all and get back to the drawing board…but that would not have been an intelligent thing to do. If he killed everyone then he would need to replace everyone and that would have meant spending even more time in Seasoning City. He wanted to leave. He wanted to get in a plane or a boat or on a train or just to pick a direction and to start walking. He hated it here. If it weren't for the fact that he needed to get that child back, personally most likely, he would have packed himself and the children up and left ages ago.
"With all due respect, sir, we did have him. He was in one of the curse rooms and he should not have been able to escape on his own." Said Ishiguro. The child had help. There was no other way. Those curse rooms could hold even him. The child, as powerful as he was, should not have been able to break out on his own. They couldn't see it through his mask but his eyes landed on Suzuki's two children. Both of them were around the boy's age. The girl's aura was very distinctive, not like the Awakened, and she had been felt at various points in the facility even though he had been assured that Suzuki's children would not be underfoot.
"Obviously your curse rooms are not as secure as they seem, then." Said Suzuki. Ishiguro may have been useful but he had also overstepped. He was a very old man, he had lived long enough….but then he would have had to find a new Division leader. He followed Ishiguro's aura. It was focused on…the children? Why? They were doing nothing to draw attention to themselves, well Daughter couldn't help it, but she and Son were just standing there holding hands and staring at him. They seemed frightened, their auras did anyway, and he wondered why. His anger was not directed at them. He knew his Son and Daughter were not capable of betraying their own father like that.
"The control panel to the curse room was shorted out from the outside, sir." Said Ishiguro. He still focused on those children. He didn't know them, they kept to themselves, but he could remember feeling the girl child's aura moving around. The girl child was looking back at him now in some facsimile of her father's constant non-expression. She would most likely have been filled with the same sort of ambitions that her father was. She was not too young to be after power for herself. What was it that she wanted? Her own Division? Was that her plan, to make the leadership here seem incompetent and then to take over. She may have just been a child but so had everyone in that room at some point in their lives. Ambition knew no age.
"Explain." Said Suzuki. He did not like what was being implied. Someone had betrayed him. Someone had seen fit to free the only other esper child that they had been able to find since Daughter. Now the child was out there running free and he was there getting to the bottom of it. He'd sent someone competent out to find him this time. Shimazaki knew the child's aura so it was only a matter of time before he was found and returned.
And dealt with.
"We're still working out how it happened but after the boy's initial escape from the holding cells he was caught and put in a curse room. The room can only be opened from the outside with a control panel and that control panel was shorted out from the outside." Said Ishiguro
"Review the security footage, then, and tell me who here saw fit to betray me." Said Suzuki
"Nobody betrayed you!" said Mob. She couldn't help it, it just slipped out, and now everyone was staring at her. Sho was holding her hand really tight. She hadn't meant to say anything, she just needed to get dad off of this train of thought. She had…she had not betrayed him because….because she had been helping another esper and that was what Claw did, it helped espers, so really she had not done anything wrong at all. She was not lying to dad. She was not a liar or a traitor.
"Shut up!" whispered Sho. She should not have been talking. Even he knew that this was the time to shut up and let dad yell. At least he wasn't yelling at them. If he started yelling at them then he might have figured out that they had been thinking about leaving. They hadn't left, though, because he had gotten really tired all of a sudden. Big sis put him down for a nap and then she had watched TV. That was what happened. That was the only thing that had happened. Big sis hadn't left because if she'd left then she might have been the traitor and if she was the traitor then dad would have done to her what he did to traitors. Sho had seen it so many times. It was not good and he was not going to let that happen to his big sis. Even if she could be kind of bossy and annoying nobody deserved to have something like that happen to them. Not even his bossy and annoying older sister who was always on him to do his schoolwork and take baths and go to bed at a reasonable time.
"Daughter. Stay out of this. This does not concern you or your brother." Said Suzuki. She was speaking out of turn….and now he had that to deal with on top of everything else.
"But nobody betrayed you! We wouldn't! Nobody would betray Claw! Claw helps bring espers together and that's a good thing so that means that nobody would betray you!" said Mob. She needed to get dad off of this whole 'betrayal' thing. She didn't know what happened to traitors, exactly, but she knew that it as the sort of thing that Minegishi wasn't going to tell her about until she was ten. Also if anyone could have been considered to be a traitor there it was her, not that she had done anything wrong because obviously the boy had been mistaken for an orphan and kidnapped by mistake, but dad might not have seen it her way. So she had to make sure that dad knew that nobody would ever want to betray him.
"Don't!" said Sho. He reached over and covered her mouth just like she had been doing to him for as long as he could remember. She didn't lick his hand or try to bite him or anything. That was good, he did not want her germs even if they were brother and sister, and she was being quiet now, too. Her aura and her face seemed scared though. He didn't blame her. Dad was scary then, kind of like a monster made up of energy, and that was worse than how he was scary at the best of times.
"Daughter…you see the best in people. You're young and you can still see only the best in people. I know that it pains you to think of someone trying to undermine our work but it does happen. Don't worry. The traitor will be dealt with and then your new friend will be found again and you and your brother will be introduced to him and I know that you'll be happy." Said Suzuki. Son was trying to shut Daughter up. Good boy. He would have to speak with Daughter about speaking out of turn but he did not blame her. He had, so far in life, shielded her from the vast majority of the realities of his work. She wanted to believe that nobody would be stupid enough to undermine him or his work. Maybe it was her age or her gender that made her so naïve to the ways of the world, the fact that sometimes people were either stupid enough or suicidal enough that they would work against him, and he did not want to shatter that within her but he would have to. At some point she would have to know that as much as she idolized him, which she was right to do, others did not and actively tried to hurt him and the work he did.
"Yeah, we think so too dad. Can we go now? We didn't have anything to do with this and we…we have a lot of…schoolwork to do! Yeah, a lot of that. Also it's cold out here and…and big sis isn't wearing a sweater. So, yeah, can we go?" asked Sho. He wanted to tell dad to let them go, that he was being a jerk and that he wanted to get as far away from him as possible, but he wasn't going to say that. He was too scared to be mad.
"Go." Said Suzuki. Son had a point. The children hadn't done anything wrong. They weren't capable of it. They were loyal to him, they had to be, and he trusted them completely and totally. They were the only people he could trust that much.
"Come on. You can help me with my English or history or math or whatever. Let's get out of here and-" Said Sho. He took his hand off of big sis's mouth and grabbed her by the hand. They had to go back before she said anything else. If she said anything else then dad would have started to suspect them. Even though he had no reason to be suspicious. That was what Sho told himself. Big sis hadn't helped. Big sis hadn't been the one to betray dad. Big sis had stayed in the room with him. That was what had happened. That was all that had happened.
"Sir? If I may?" asked Ishiguro. His eyes and his aura had not left that girl. She had been responsible for this. It was the only thing that made sense. Nobody in his Division would have done something so heinous as freeing a prisoner. It had to have been an outsider. Not those upper echelon espers that Suzuki had brought with him either. They already outranked him. They had no reason to want his job, they were already members of Suzuki's personal entourage, so they were above suspicion. The girl, on the other hand, was just a child. She had no place in Claw's hierarchy, not really, but she was her father's Daughter. She wanted to prove herself, probably, to her father. She had come from the man who planned on taking on the whole world, of course she would be filled with ambition. Well he was not going to lose to a little girl. She had miscalculated. She had thought that she was above suspicion because she was just a little girl. She had thought that nobody would dare say anything to someone who was as powerful as she was. Well she had severely miscalculated.
"If you may do what?" asked Suzuki dangerously. He did not need excuses or kowtowing. He did not need anything other than the name of who had betrayed him.
"Your children were supposed to stay put, were they not?" asked Ishiguro. The boy wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was frightened. The girl was as placid as always. He wondered if the boy had been adopted. The girl looked just like her father. Suzuki, when they had fought, had been so placid. Even after four hours and nearly killing him, he wondered if Suzuki had been prepared to kill him, Suzuki had been so placid.
"They were." Said Suzuki. He did not like where this was going. He did not suspect his children. He did not like the way suspicion was being cast towards his children. He did not like this at all.
"They were, I'm sure that they were." Said Fukuda quickly. He did not want to be present for this but he needed to be. He needed to be there for Sho. This seemed like something that Sho would have done. He would not have gone along with something so transparently wrong. He was Masami's son.
"Then why did I, not only me but many others, feel her aura moving through the facility earlier?" asked Ishiguro. There. One of the girl's allies. She may have been small and adorable there in her princess dress but looks could be deceiving. Nobody knew that better than Ishiguro himself. Seeming harmless had it's advantages. That was why he had the voice modulator in his mask.
"Um…." Said Mob. She knew that people could feel her but…but she assumed that it had been only the Awakened…and she also thought that they Awakened wouldn't have told on her…but that was not the thing to think. The Division Leader was telling on her. Mob didn't know her, the lady in the mask and the black dress thing, so really it shouldn't have been surprised that she was telling on her.
"The kids had nothing to do with this." said Fukuda. He knew that if he started yelling or pleading that it would make him looked desperate and guilty. He knew that Sho had something to do with this. Maybe Shigeko too but definitely Sho and he knew that if Suzuki knew that his own son had betrayed him…..Fukuda knew what Suzuki did to traitors and he knew, also, what Suzuki was capable of doing to his own son.
"We didn't!" said Sho. No. He knew what dad did to traitors and he was not going to do that to big sis!
"I know that you two had nothing to do with this." said Suzuki. He felt his aura flare, then, and he let it show. This was not a productive use of his time. He would not be lied to. It was one thing, one terrible thing, to place blame on another. It was another thing entirely to blame his children!
"How can you be sure? You were gone all day. I was not. I know for a fact that I felt her aura. There are only so many bi-colored auras in the world." Said Ishiguro
"Of course you felt her aura. She's everywhere." Said Fukuda dismissively. That was good. At least he hadn't felt Sho. Suzuki would never have done anything to harm, truly harm, Shigeko. She was his pride and joy after all. Sho was just his son, Shigeko was his prodigy.
"Daughter? Did you have something to do with this?" asked Suzuki. He knew that she hadn't. He knew that he could trust her. He knew that she was his Daughter, his most loyal follower, and that she would never have betrayed him. He trusted her. He trusted her more than he trusted anyone else in the world. Even Masami.
"No. We didn't do anything." Said Sho. She didn't know how to lie. She never told lies even if it was in her best interest. He was letting her do the talking, that was good, he was much better at lying…even though he knew that he wasn't. He really wasn't. She didn't go anywhere or do anything. That was the truth. That was all there was to it. That was the whole of it. Yes, it was.
"I was asking your sister. She can speak for herself." Said Suzuki. He could feel something…something growing within him. A bad feeling. Daughter…she would never have betrayed him like that. But then why hadn't she stayed put? He had told her to stay put. She should have done as she was told. There was no way that…that they should have betrayed him…she had no reason to leave her room, though. There was nothing her for her to…but she would not have done…she would not have done anything.
"I….I didn't help him escape. I didn't let him out." Said Mob. She was telling the truth. Not the whole truth but half of the truth. She had saved the boy from the curse room but…but he had been the one to get himself out of the holding cell. That meant that she was not the one who helped him escape. That meant that she was not the one who let him out. That meant that she was not the one who betrayed dad. She had never betrayed dad and she would never have betrayed dad. She loved her dad.
"Then what were you doing?" asked Ishiguro. She was lying. She wasn't even good at it. She was putting on her cute and innocent act but he could see right through it. She reminded him of a younger version of himself in a lot of ways. There was something to be said about being seen as helpless. She wasn't helpless, though, and she wasn't innocent. She was a Suzuki and that was enough for him.
"I-I-I-" said Mob. She was not a good liar. She did not like lying. Mom said that lying was wrong. She was not supped to tell lies and if mom could have heard her then…then she would have been so mad…and so disappointed. She was telling lie…even though she had done a good thing…but she was not supposed to go around telling lies…
"She was looking for me. She got freaked out because it went dark." Said Minegishi. They were not involved in the mass kowtow. They were off in the corner scrolling through their phone. They had no idea what had really happened. They just knew that they had felt Mob outside. They also were not itching to go running to Suzuki with this information. He was the type to smack his kids around and Mob didn't deserve that. Also they were a bit more selfish, too, in the sense that they didn't want the Seventh Division to go the way of the Eighth Division. They liked being alive thank you very much.
"I'm sure she did." Said Ishiguro. She was gathering her own allies. What was her end goal? A Division of Claw? Or to usurp her father, even? She was his firstborn but she was a girl. She would be overlooked in favor of her brother…unless she was trying to frame her brother even…something which may have been it…
"She's just a kid, you know. What's your excuse?" asked Minegishi. There was no reason to be such a bitch. Suzuki was pissed and the only way to make him slightly less pissed was to throw someone under the bus. Well it wouldn't be Minegishi, the woods were very big and they were just one person. It wasn't going to be Mob either. If this moron was going to be throwing someone under the bus then it should have been literally anyone other than Suzuki's favorite kid.
"I know what I-" said Ishiguro
"You're blaming children for your own incompetence? Really?" asked Fukuda. Wow. He and Minegishi were agreeing on something. It was a sign of the end. He wondered what they had to gain from this….oh, right. Shigeko. For some reason they had decided to ally with Shigeko for some reason. Fukuda knew that these were not sentimental reasons. Minegishi did not see Shigeko as the child they never had or anything like that. Minegishi probably just wanted to cover their own ass. Suzuki wouldn't live forever, he would be succeeded by his children one day, and it made sense to get in good with his favorite child. Fukuda didn't care why Minegishi was protecting the kids. He just cared about keeping Sho safe.
"Yeah, you're blaming us for your own incompetence!" said Sho. This was good. As long as everyone else was talking then dad wouldn't expect big sis to talk. Not that there was anything to talk about. That was what he kept on telling himself. There was nothing at all to talk about. Nothing had happened. Big sis hadn't done anything. If he kept on telling himself this then it would be the truth.
"Don't help." Said Minegishi. Another surefire way to piss Suzuki off, get his son going. That was an annoying little boy at the best of times and these were not at all the best of times. Even throwing someone under the bus would not fix this. They hoped that Shimazaki managed to find the kid. It would be easier for him in the outside world where they didn't have curse rooms every so often. Those really threw him off, or so he said, Minegishi didn't think that he needed to hold onto them while they walked through the division.
"Don't tell me what to do." Said Sho. He would help. He would help and he would keep big sis safe. Even if he knew that by this time tomorrow she would be back to bossing him around like normal.
"Listen you little-" said Minegishi. They did not have patience for annoying little boys. They did not have much patience to begin with. They needed to lay down. This whole thing was just too much. The fact that they had moved back to Japan so suddenly, the fact that they hated these big division compounds, and the fact that Suzuki's aura was practically SCREAMING at them. This whole thing was one big headache. That kid, the one that they had kidnapped, had better have been worth it. Mob level prodigy worth it.
"Enough. If you value your life then you will stop this immediately. All of you." Said Suzuki. A headache. This was such a headache. Everyone was such a headache. He wanted to leave. He hated Seasoning City so much. He could not take one more minute in this city or this division. Hopefully Shimazaki would have been able to track down the child. Then they could….he didn't know what would come next. He couldn't think. He needed a drink…for the first time in he didn't even know how long.
"Yes dad. We'll go now, dad." Said Mob. She took Sho by the hand. Dad waved his hand and that meant that they were dismissed. That was good. She needed to go before she had to tell any more lies…or before she had to try and tell more lies. She was not a liar, not a good one, and mom would not have wanted her to tell lies anyway…and dad would not have wanted her to have betrayed him by helping that boy escape…so she couldn't come clean because then she would be in so much trouble…and also there was the part with the kissing and she was not going to tell her dad about that so, really, the only thing that she could have done was to take Sho and run back to their room.
So that was what she did…only with walking quickly instead of running.
"We are going to stand here all day, all month, all YEAR until I find out who's responsible for this." said Suzuki. He watched his children disappear from sight. Well their bodies did but their auras…Daughter could be seen through the walls….until she walked past a curse room. There was silence after that declaration and he used that time to trace the path the children took. Son's aura was eclipsed by Daughter's. He could see her clearly and he didn't even have to focus….so Daughter could have, in theory, been the one to…but that was crazy. Daughter had gotten frightened by the sudden plunge into darkness, she was only nine years old after all, so she had sought out the company of a trusted adult. There that made perfect sense…though it was not like her at all to abandon her brother…but Son did not fear the dark. Yes, he had no sense of self-preservation but Daughter did. There. It all made perfect sense.
"Can I go too, boss? I didn't let the kid go. Security isn't even my department. I was on outside security but with everyone running around like a bunch of headless chickens I couldn't get a lock on any one aura. Also the curse rooms here are really throwing me off." Said Minegishi. Not a total lie. They saw best through the eyes of the plants which was why they had been outside but the sheer number of curse rooms, the blind spots, really did throw them off. Also they just plain did not want to stand there all day, all month, all year until someone came forward. Knowing what Suzuki did to traitors, what he asked them to do to traitors, that was not going to happen any time soon.
"You are dismissed." Said Suzuki. He knew that Minegishi wouldn't have betrayed him either. They had a soft spot for Daughter, possibly due to not having any children of their own, so they would not jeopardize their relationship with Daughter. Also they had nothing to gain by letting that child go.
"Can I leave too, boss? I was with you the whole time and security isn't my department either." Said Fukuda. He had to get back to those kids. He knew that he could not leave them alone now. He didn't know how he would protect them, Sho, but he knew that he needed to be there with him. He had done a good thing in letting that poor little boy go. He needed to know that he had done a good thing even if his father was acting like he had committed some kind of terrible crime. There was so much of Masami in him, even now after being separated from his mother for all of these years, and it made Fukuda so happy. The world did not need another Suzuki. The world could barely handle the one it had. That amoral, self-serving, selfish, moronic….he got off that train of thought. Nothing good would come from that train of thought. He would just tally up his evil thoughts for the day like normal.
"Fine, you're dismissed as well." Said Suzuki with a wave of his hand. There was no need for Fukuda. He would not be healing the person who had seen fit to betray-
"Can I leave too, President Suzuki? I was on my lunch break when it happened-" said one of the Awakened
"No. Nobody else will be dismissed. Not until the person responsible for this comes forward and-" said Suzuki. He would have kept on talking if he hadn't been interrupted by a shift in the energy around him. He knew that feeling. The one that came right before Shimazaki appeared before him.
Empty handed.
"Shimazaki. Explain." Said Suzuki. It had only been….he had no idea how long it had been since the child escaped, honestly. He knew what time he had been informed of the child's escape but he had no idea when it had actually happened….but had it been long enough for the child to disappear completely? He knew how fast he could travel but he was a grown man…but the boy's family was wealthy….
"Yeah, I looked in every corner of this city but all I found were some evil spirits, some neutral spirits, and a very friendly dog. No kid." Said Shimazaki. This was not on him. The last person that Suzuki should have put on security was the blind guy. Not here. There were too many curse spots, they messed with his perceptions, and he wasn't sighted. He relied on sound and touch, mostly, to navigate when his perceptions failed him. Not the things to rely on in a place like this. He had done his best and Suzuki got what he got and he didn't get upset.
"So you failed me too?' asked Suzuki. He tried his best to control his powers. He hated today. He hated this day and he hated this place and he just wanted to LEAVE but he couldn't because he still had so much to do and-
"Yeah, kind of. Hey, I did what I could. If the kid fled the city or the country or whatever then, hey, he's gone. What can you do?" said Shimazaki. Eh, they didn't need any more kids around anyway. They had Suzuki's two kids and that was enough of a headache for everyone. The last thing that they needed were more of the little monsters running around. Kids that powerful weren't worth it anyway, too unstable, it was best to wait until they were adults. That was Shimazaki's opinion, anyway, which he knew that Suzuki didn't give a shit about.
"Find him." said Suzuki
"I'd get right on that if I could, boss, but I have no idea where to start looking." Said Shimazaki. He surveyed the people around him. A lot of people kowtowing. He would not join them. The division leader looked like he was about to blow. That could have been interesting. He still didn't much want to hang around. He could see, sort of see, where Toshi had gotten to. Toshi was way more fun than these idiots.
"Fine. You're dismissed….everyone is dismissed. Leave me." Said Suzuki. He didn't have to tell them twice. Everyone practically ran out of the room. Everyone but Shimazaki, he teleported, and soon Suzuki found himself alone. Good. He needed to be alone…as alone as he could be. He could see auras even past the blind spots…but not everyone could. He had to remember that not everyone was as strong as he was. That was why if he had been there he could have…but he hadn't wanted to be there…and that was fine. He was Suzuki Touichirou. He could do whatever he wanted. He could go wherever he wanted.
He could just leave.
So that was what he would do. He would leave this place and go….somewhere else. If the child was gone then…then he was gone. It was unfortunate but they would meet again. There was a division of Claw on at least every continent so it stood to reason that he would eventually find this child somewhere else. Somewhere other than Seasoning City.
He hated Seasoning City so much it was frightening.