The kids hardly hurt themselves these days.

As far as Fukuda knew, anyway. They hardly ever called him. He got called in for broken toys more often than broken bones these days. Maybe because they had gotten less accident prone as they had gotten older. Or maybe they just needed him less. He knew that, when they were younger, they had been lonely. Almost no father to speak of and a mother going through her own things. He had been a source of stability to them, then, but now…now he was just the guy who came in and healed them.

Nothing lasted forever.

They were still children but they weren't small children anymore. They had changed so much over the years that Fukuda had hardly noticed. He just woke up one day and Sho came up to past his waist. He was almost taller than his older sister now, actually, and Fukuda would have expected him to have been prouder of that fact. Younger Sho would have been proud of that. Nine year old Sho was proud of…of things that he should not have been proud of in Fukuda's opinion.

He had failed Masami.

He had promised her that he would get her son to her. That just plain wasn't possible. He had also promised her that he would watch over the children and keep them from turning out like their father. That ship had sailed a long time ago. For Shigeko at least. She was more and more like her father every day. She was cold to him, cold to just about everyone, and had no problems ordering people around. She used to be so apologetic before, when she had to ask something of him…or anyone, but now she gave orders with confidence to rival her father's.

Fukuda, I have scratches. Can you fix them?

Her tone was so flat. Not even a hello. Just calling him over and telling him to come and fix her scratches. That was something else that she had in common with her father. Suzuki could not deal with minor injuries. They weren't conductive to his worldview. He saw himself as a God and God did not bleed or bruise or spill hot tea on himself and end up with bad scalds. She, apparently, couldn't deal with just a few scratches. Whatever. It wasn't like he lived that far away.

He hated these compounds.

Cities were better. There was never any shortage of things to do but at least in cities there was less to do and also he didn't have to live quite so close to the Suzuki family and their entourage. If two people, well three if he were to count himself, could be considered an entourage. Whenever they were in these compounds either Suzuki did something to hurt himself, usually getting involved in another crazy 'awakening' experiment, or someone had enough of him and decided to try and end his life. None of those injuries ever took. Fukuda never let them take.

He didn't have it in him to kill anyone. Not even Suzuki Touichirou.

And he didn't have it in him to let a little girl suffer. Even though he doubted that she was truly suffering. This may have even been good for her. Let her see that she was just as human as everyone else. Let her see that her father had filled her head with…he got off that train of thought. There was no point in denouncing Suzuki in his head. He would never denounce him in reality so there was no point in denouncing him in his own mind. No, he would follow Suzuki around for the rest of his life and then probably into the next, too. He wondered what his life would have been like if he had ended up getting into a different school. If he hadn't taken an interest in Suzuki. If he had left Suzuki when he had the chance, when they were kids, when things hadn't gotten this far.

But they had gotten this far.

He had gone this far. Even though he hadn't gone very far at all. He only lived right there at the other side of this compound. He had his own prefab. All the houses here were cheap prefabs. He was getting so tired of living in cheap prefabs. If he'd had it his way he would have had a house deep on the country. Just him and….just him. There was not point to it, thinking of her, thinking of what could have been. If he'd met her first. If he'd managed to get her away from him sooner. If…there were a lot of ifs. The loneliest words a person could ever know were if only, if only, it were so. Masami was gone and she was living her own life. They hadn't checked in since…he couldn't even remember. Too long…

It was better this way.

He made it to Shigeko's door. Someone, most likely Sho, had drawn a sign. Suzuki family only. There was a caste drawn underneath it with a sleeping dragon. Sho could draw very well for someone his age. That was…Sho hadn't drawn anything for him in so long. He hardly even saw any of Sho's drawings. Just the ones that Suzuki carried around with him for God only knew what reason. It wasn't like he was one of the great art lovers in the world and he certainly didn't give a damn about his own son beyond the fact that he had powers. He didn't give a damn about either of his kids.

Or not.

He did have a soft spot for Shigeko. When he spoke of the children unprompted he always spoke of Shigeko. She had discovered some new power or she had said something so intelligent or she could call kendo better than even the most seasoned referees. Always such good things about Shigeko. Fukuda wondered, bitterly, where the praise for the rest of his family was. Where his son's. His blood son's, praise was. Where his wife's praise had been. He had turned her into a ghost, practically, and….and he needed to stop thinking about Masami. She was gone now. No, not gone, she had escaped. She was much better off wherever she had ended up in this world of theirs. She was…she was not his wife.

This was not his family.

And other such things that he'd been telling himself for years and years. This was not his daughter, something he was grateful for more and more these days, this was his boss. Essentially his boss. This was someone who he had to answer to. He was there for perform his function within Claw. Noting more and nothing less. She knew it as well as he did. He knew that the minute he walked through that door she wouldn't throw herself at him and wrap her arms around his legs. She wouldn't beg him to stay and play with her. She wouldn't hand him a mountain of dolls and tell him who he had to be and what their world was. No, she would just…

"Hi Fukuda."

Say that. Two simple words. She stood there in a wet bathing suit, part of him wondered if it was wise to leave two kids unattended with a swimming pool, and held out her arms. Those were….deep scratches. Human nails had done that. Sho had done that. She was in a wet bathing suit. Sho had been diving in and out of the pool all day. He could be heard all throughout the compound. That was good. He hadn't ended up with the hydrophobia that most of the Awakened ended up with. Even if he had the same scars, some of them even worse, than the Awakened ended up with. That was good. What he had done to his sister was not but Fukuda didn't blame him. Not with the way that he had been brought up for the past nine years.

"Litt-Miss Suzuki. Those look pretty bad. Want me to fix those up for you?" asked Fukuda. He had been about to dust off an old nickname. He knew better than that. She was her father's daughter. Suzuki hated being called anything other than Suzuki. Even when they had been kids, closer to being friends than they ever had been in their entire lives, he had never been Touichirou. Not once. She was her father's Daughter. She wasn't little lady anymore. She wasn't even Shigeko. Miss Suzuki. That was what she was, who she was, now. Who she was to him. Polite. He had to be polite to his boss's daughter.

His future boss.

"Yes. Just these." She said. She came to him and held out her arms. He hadn't even had time to take his shoes off. He was still in the space in front of the door reserved for the genkan. There were two pairs of shoes there. A tiny pair of plastic blue sandals as well as a pair of adult sized lavender gym shoes.

And the adult who those shoes belonged to could be seen laying down on the couch dead to the world.

"What about them? Are they ok?" asked Fukuda as he healed up the scratches on Shigeko's arms. They looked worse than they were. He resisted the idea that she had done something to deserve this. Sho needed to be held accountable for his actions…even though the poor kid had been to hell and back. Shigeko antagonized him without meaning to. He was just angry at the world, his father's doing, and something that Fukuda himself should have tried harder to counteract. Poor little guy…

"No. Minegishi is asleep and even if they were awake they wouldn't want me to tell you to heal them. They said that what was wrong with them was not the sort of thing that you could help with." She said. Fukuda knew, based on the opened pill bottle and empty liquor bottle, what was wrong with Minegishi. They were a terrible influence on Shigeko, in his opinion, but he didn't dare voice that opinion. If Shigeko wanted to be friends with an adult, not just any adult but that adult, then there was nothing that Fukuda could do about it.

Even though he should have.

He could see the road that Shigeko was going down and he did not like it. She smelled like liquor, a bit like it, and someone her age…well he was in no position to stop her from doing anything. He wasn't anything to her. He had no power over her but if he had he would have told her that she should not have been friends with adults. Especially not that adult. Fukuda had seen Minegishi's handiwork, the aftermath of it, and Shigeko….he did not want her to go down that path.

Any of the paths that she could have been led down.

"Are you sure?" asked Fukuda. He could fix intoxication easily. Lord knew he'd done that enough times for Suzuki back when they'd been young. He wanted to warn her not to drink. Suzuki may not have been her father by blood but he had been just as powerful, then, and she was now. She did not need to get drunk or whatever else Minegishi was. That wasn't going to be good for anyone. She was nine years old…he should not have even had to have been worrying about this. She was nine and she should not have even known that drinking, and whatever else Minegishi was into, was even a thing. He should have been there for her. He should have been there for both of the kids. He had…he had failed Masami so very badly…

"No, they said the same thing yesterday and the day before that. If they say that they're fine then I guess that I believe them. You can go now, though, I'm fine now. Thank you." She said. That was it. No throwing her arms around his legs, well waist now because she was taller these days,

"Well if that's it then I guess that I'll be off." Said Fukuda. There was so much more that he wanted to say to her. He wanted to ask her if she wanted to play. He wanted to ask her how she had been. He wanted...he wanted to see if she still had at least some traces of the kid that she used to be….but he didn't. He knew how Suzuki felt about him overstepping. He had overstepped before, years ago, and it hadn't ended well for him. There was no point in overstepping, anyway.

He had already failed Masami.

He had let her daughter grow up to be…a smaller version of her father. Yes, that was the best way to describe it. She was just a smaller version of Suzuki. A smaller, female, version of Suzuki. More so than his own son. His own son who Fukuda could see, as he left the cheap prefab, rolling around in the dirt. That could have been nothing, Sho could be very strange sometimes, or it could have been something. He was concerned. He couldn't just let Sho…well he was overstepping but…well not really. Rolling around in the dirt could not have been good for him.

Also he had been meaning to speak to Sho.

He knew that Sho was the one who had let the kid go. The kidnapped kid. The worst thing, almost the worst thing, that Suzuki had ever done. They were kidnapping children now…apparently this was what they were. Claw was an organization that kidnapped kids and forcibly awakened them for whatever crazy idea that came into Suzuki's mind. However he planned on justifying the latest of his crimes. Sho…he had let the boy go. There was still so much of Masami in him. That was why Sho had been down there with the others for questioning. That was why he had defended his sister, too. He knew Shigeko. She would never have defied her father like that. No, she must have gone looking for Sho…and found him too. He had seemed dazed a bit, almost like they had been fighting, and he knew that the only reason that Shigeko would have left her room would have been to go after her little brother. She would never have defied her father otherwise.

But Sho would have.

He was so proud of Sho. He wished that he had some way of safely telling Masami that he had not totally failed her, that her son was a good person, and that there was still some hope for him. There was still hope…and hope was usually in such short supply in this place. He wished that there was some way that he could have shown Masami what a good person her son had grown up to be against all odds. Not that he was grown up yet. No, he was only nine years old….he was only nine but he had been braver at nine than Fukuda had ever been at any point in his life.

"Sho, what are you doing?" asked Fukuda. Sho stopped rolling around in the mud and looked up at him. The mud his a few of his scars. The thing on his back was covered as were the ones on his chest and stomach. The thing on his leg, though, was right there plain as day. He wished that there was more he could have done for him. It was difficult, it must have been, having to spend the rest of his life covered in those truly grotesque scars…but there was nothing that Fukuda could do for scar tissue. It was what it was.

"Making mud. What are you doing?" asked Sho. He was mad, Fukuda could tell, and that was good. He hadn't taken after his father in that way. The way in which no matter what he was feeling Suzuki was cold as ice and about twice as unpleasant.

"I was just healing your sister and-" said Fukuda. Sho instantly jumped to his feet. He jumped to his feet and he grabbed Fukuda. His aura was visible. The droplets of water that clung to him began to raise up from his skin and float away.

Fukuda held him close. He didn't care about the mud.

"I'm sorry!" said Sho. He said that over and over again. He was begging forgiveness for something that Fukuda could not have faulted him for. Kids fought, that was normal, and little brothers were obligated to be pains to their big sisters. Of course his rivalry with Shigeko would be worse than was normal between siblings. Shigeko was his father's favorite child. Suzuki was very opened about which child was his favorite and which child he would rather have been without.

He hated Suzuki, sometimes.

And he loved Sho. He reminded himself, again, that Sho was not his son. This was not his son but…but that didn't matter right now. Sho needed him. Sho needed someone. Sho really had no one. Suzuki may have been spending more time with Sho and all but he still favored his sister above all else. That wasn't fair. Nothing about Sho's life had ever been fair.

That poor kid.

"Hey, hey, it's ok. You didn't do any real damage. I swear. No concussions, contusions, or abrasions." Said Fukuda. He dusted off an oldy but a goody. It worked. Sho stopped apologizing. His aura calmed down, too, which was good. Sho wasn't anywhere near his father or sister's level but he was still a powerful esper in his own right.

"I…I don't know why I scratched her. We were swimming and then I went under, but I went under on my own, but then I grabbed her and…and then I scratched her…and I don't know why I did that…and I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm such a bad person. I don't know why I'm such a jerk. I wish I was a good person-" said Sho. Fukuda shook his head. No. This was not the way that Sho should have seen himself. He was only nine years old. He should not have been talking that way about himself…and he shouldn't have been fighting with his sister either but Fukuda didn't much care about that right now. No, Sho was hurting. That was the only thing that he cared about.

"Sho, no. You're a good person. You just got a little upset, that's all, and I'm sure that she forgives you. She's not mad at you at all, she's never mad at you, and I bet that your dad won't even hear about this." said Fukuda

"You…you think?" asked Sho. He sniffled and wiped a tear from his eye. He left a streak of mud there. Masami, had she been there, would have laughed. She would have thought that he was just the cutest thing. This would have been such a good photo op…Masami would have whipped her camera right out and taken the picture…and she would have been there too. She always loved taking the kids to the pool. She always loved going places with them. If he hadn't…if he hadn't helped her escape…would she have been there with them? Or back in Japan? Would she have been there with him? Would he have…he stops thinking about this. About her. She's gone, now, and it is what it is.

She's gone.

"Yeah, I know that I won't say a word to him about this. I would never rat you out…no matter what you do." Said Fukuda. He wanted, he wished, that Sho would have told him right then and there that he had been the one to let the boy go. That he had been the one to do the right thing. He knew, though, that Sho would never have confessed to saving the boy.

He knew what his father did to traitors.

"No matter what I do? Even if I get mad and hurt big sis? Even if I do bad things?" asked Sho. Fukuda paused for a moment. He didn't want to give Sho the ok to behave badly…but he also didn't need to worry about another person being there to punish him. Another person there just waiting for him to act out. No, Fukuda could never be that person.

"Yes…I won't tell him about the times you do bad things. The things that your father would consider to be bad." Said Fukuda. He would never tell Suzuki what his son had been responsible for. They both knew what Suzuki did to traitors. He would not put Sho through that. He had already let Sho go through the Awakening process. He had already been partially responsible for Sho losing his mother. He had already been unable to protect Sho…but he could, in this way, at least.

The kids hardly ever called him in anymore, they hardly ever got hurt, and Fukuda could not be responsible for getting them hurt.