Suzuki needed a new bodyguard.

If he had to be in close proximity to Shimazaki Ryou for another second he was going to kill everyone within a hundred meters. Not of his own accord, though, no that would have been a stupid thing to do on purpose. Claw had staffing shortages as it was. Also there would be a lot of cleanup that would need to be done. No, he was not about to go on any killing sprees of his own accord.

But he had little to no control over himself when he exploded.

And he was close to an explosion. For once it had nothing at all to do with his Son. Well it always sort of did, the child was a trial in and of himself, but for once he was not the sole source of his father's stress and suffering. No, the Boy was being remarkably good. He was sitting on the floor drawing. Suzuki could make out a lot of red in whatever it was. Probably the last Scar that he had fought. Son was always very invested in those fights. Daughter on the other hand would have found them psychologically disturbing, probably, and if she ended up psychologically disturbed she would be of no use to him. Also he liked her the way she was.

He so wished that he had brought his Daughter with. At least she was pleasant to be around.

"How you doing, boss?" asked Shimazaki as he poured himself something in a heavy decanter. He smelled it as he poured. Cognac. Old cognac. Suzuki never drank, not when he could avoid it, so he wouldn't mind if Shimazaki borrowed some. This was thirsty work after all.

He just could not begin to understand why so many people kept on trying to kill his boss. It was one of life's mysteries.

"I'm fine. Yourself?" asked Suzuki. That liquor was strictly for decoration. Well that and the occasional social drink he had to take. Claw wasn't all bloody fights, long speeches, and endless piles of paper work. He would let Shimazaki drink some, though, mainly because it might shut him up for a minute.

"Been worse." Said Shimazaki. He leaned back and put his feet up on the short table in front of him. The table shook. He heard some papers hit the ground. The kid, Suzuki's son, stopped his constant pencil scratching for a moment. He almost wished that he could tell what it was that the kid had been drawing all day. He could smell graphite and also wax. Not candle wax, that had it's own smell and it carried a sort of a taste to it, too. No, that was something like crayon wax but stronger. Sucked that he couldn't see, the kid was apparently a pretty good artist.

"Have you now?" asked Suzuki. He kept his eyes on his work and his aura on Shimazaki. To send him away or not to send him away, that was the question. On the one hand an attempt on his life could be made at any time. On the other hand thinking that death lurked around every corner was a sign of paranoia and he did not consider himself to be a paranoid man. On the other hand, the other other hand, Son was a lot quieter when Shimazaki was around. There, that one won out. A quiet Son was a good Son.

He had no idea why Son was so quiet when Shimazaki was around but he was not going to question it.

Son probably wanted a companion who was not his older sister. That made sense, maybe, since the children had been together since Son had been one and Daughter had been two. Maybe they were sick of each other….they had been so quarrelsome as of late. Daughter had decided, too, to find a companion on her own who was not her brother. Maybe Son was doing the same thing. Not that Suzuki pretended to understand his Son. No, the Boy was a complete and utter mystery to him.

Even now.

Even when he was being quiet he was a mystery. He was collecting his drawings from the floor, and from what Suzuki could see they were indeed scenes of violence, but said nothing. Well it seemed as though he was on the cusp of saying something but he just could not find the words. Odd. Son usually just sort of said whatever popped into his mind. The Boy had never had anything approaching a filter before…but he was nine years old now. Maybe he was just getting older.

Suzuki could not wait until his Son was a grown man…or at least not a child anymore. Maybe then he could have had some hope of understanding the boy.

"Your shoes are on the table." Said Sho as he collected his drawings. He felt…a lot of things….so he was going to go with vaguely upset. You weren't supposed to put your feet up on the table when you had shoes on…and Sho decided to conveniently forget that he put his feet on the table when he had shoes on all the time.

"I know. What are you going to do about it?" asked Shimazaki. He watched Suzuki as best as he could. That guy had the loudest aura he had ever heard. It wasn't directed at him, which was great, though he knew he could totally last another fight with him. In the entire organization he was third when it came to raw power. It went Suzuki, Suzuki's Daughter, and then him. He wondered where the kid, Suzuki's son, ranked in all of this. His aura was loud too but not as bad as the rest of his family. Not that he was trying to pick a fight with the kid to prove himself or anything. No, he was not about to go off and fight a nine year old.

Though he was pretty bored.

Aside from beating up some potential traitors, he wondered why so many people bothered making suitcase bombs since even if they went off he could easily get Suzuki and his kid to safety before any real damage happened, he really had nothing else to do. It would have been suicidal for them, the traitors, to try again. He didn't think that the traitors were that smart, you would have to have been an idiot to challenge Suzuki like that, but they weren't stupid enough to try twice in one day.

Even though that would have broken up the monotony of listening to Suzuki type and Suzuki's son scratch pencils and crayons against the never ending stack of papers he carried with him.

"Throw something at you." Said Sho. That was the first thing that came to mind. He kind of liked it when he threw things and then Shimazaki caught them. It was so cool. He couldn't see a thing but he could still catch and stuff. Even stuff that he wasn't facing. It was cool when he dodged, too, and teleported…he was just so cool.

"Try it and see what happens." Said Shimazaki. He wasn't going to do anything worse than throw whatever the kid threw at him right back. He wasn't in the business of fighting kids. It wasn't fair. He knew he would win…now. He'd rethink this in a few years when the kid stopped being, well, a kid…even if he was more powerful than most adults.

"You'll dodge, probably, but then I'll throw something at the place you dodged from and then that'll hit you and you'll be all 'Sho, you beat me' and I'll be all 'yeah, I did' and then you'll be all-" said Sho. He couldn't stop talking. It seemed like his brain either had trouble remembering words or used too many of them. He could not begin to understand his own brain not one bit. Maybe dad had just hit him on the head too many times.

"Son. Be quiet." Said Suzuki. He looked up from his work and made eye contact with his Son. Well now the Boy was being loud again. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, the amount of noise the Boy made, and he wished that there was. He needed quiet. Daughter was always very quiet, she always had been since she was small, and she would have been quiet if he had brought her with…but he couldn't bring her with. There had been a lot of lower echelon people challenging him lately, and the traitors were becoming emboldened too, which were two things that Daughter could not have stood to have seen.

It could have damaged her psychologically.

Women just were not violent beings. Usually. There was the one female Scar in the Seventh Division…and he was leaning more towards Minegishi being female these days though he knew that there was no socially acceptable reason to ask them what they were, but aside from that any women, the few women, that were a part of Claw had nothing to do with it's violent side. So Daughter would have had nothing to do with its violent side…even though she was so powerful…comparable to him even…

And he did so want her to be there, by his side, where she belonged.

"I'm not being loud." Said Sho. He could talk wherever and whenever he wanted to talk. This was a free country….maybe…he wasn't entirely sure honestly. Well either way he should have been able to talk whenever he wanted to. He never talked to big sis like that. He always talked to her even when they were talking about boring stuff that only dad liked. Dad never talked to her like he talked to him, like he was a little kid or something, and then Shimazaki had heard dad talking to him like a little kid and now he probably thought that Sho was a little kid even though he totally wasn't!

"You're being tiresome. Stop it." Said Suzuki. He tried to get back to work. He had been reading the same damn line for ten minutes now…and he had been typing the same thing over and over again too…and he still had so much to do…and so little of it could be delegated. Maybe he needed to take Daughter with him just so that he could teach her how to do the more tedious parts of the job…

Yes, that would be wonderful.

But what was not wonderful was the sudden aural spike he felt. It shoved itself into his metaphysical self. That was a lot of power that had been expelled at that moment…and now it was happening again. He closed his eyes and saw with his aura. Lower…below him…where was that? The mess hall…not an attempt on his life then…a fight. Again with this?

Claw tended to attract the violent types.

Normally he was not one to intervene in their little squabbles. However, he was annoyed now. He had already been annoyed and this was just making it worse. He did not deal well with annoyance at the best of times. This was annoyance on top of annoyance on top of annoyance. A triple layer omelet of annoyance without ketchup. No wait, with ketchup, but watery ketchup. The cheap kind that was water and sweet and he had seen the children literally drinking on more than one occasion. Not the good thick kind that was just a little bit spicy but not too much…he checked the time on the corner of his computer screen.

Too early for lunch…but he was Suzuki Touichirou. He could eat whenever he wanted…

But then again he couldn't because there was a fight in the middle of the mess hall…and he did not feel like dealing with that. He did not feel like going down there and putting his lower…yes, those were definitely lower echelon esper…in their places. Wait, no, that was the aura of one upper echelon member…he knew that aura. Relatively new but still very powerful…and he hadn't been placed yet…though it did look, metaphysically anyway, that he knew what he was doing….

He did love a good fight….but he also hated discord within the organization.

"Shimazaki. Bring me whoever is responsible for this." Said Suzuki. There, that was at least something that he could delegate.

"On it, boss." Said Shimazaki. There. He had wanted something exciting to happen and now something exciting was happening. He put his glass down on the table, no coaster because he didn't feel like it, and immediately smelled wet paper. Oh, right, the kid's drawings. Oh well that would teach him to leave his stuff unattended.

"Hey!" said Sho. That was so not cool! Which wasn't good at all because Shimazaki was usually so cool! Which wasn't good because people were either cool or not cool and now he was mad and he did stuff without thinking when he was mad, just to upset the person who had made him mad, which was why he reached out without thinking and drank the cola colored stuff that was in the glass that had been put down on his drawing-

-and it was not cola.

He spat it out immediately…and ruined the rest of the drawings he had on the table…and that was the least of his problems. That had been the most disgusting thing that he had ever tasted! And he'd had raw durian fruit before! That had tasted just like burning and it still burned even though he had spat it out! What was WRONG with Shimazaki?! Why would anyone in the whole world think that it was ok to drink something so, incredibly, awful!?

"Serves you right." Said Shimazaki as he prepared to teleport away and break up/pour gasoline on the fight that was going on in the…oh, the cafeteria. It was about lunch time it felt like. He was kind of hungry. Maye there would be putting today…unless that greedy bastard in finance ate it all again…but no matter, no matter, lots of collateral damage in these sorts of fights. A consequence of putting so many espers in one place.

"Take my Son with you." Said Suzuki. Every time he thought that he had reached the end of his rope with that child he just ended up with more slack. That had been…the picture on his laptop had gone all fuzzy. He was that upset. Well now he would have to have the cleaners around. He didn't much care for drinking, it DID NOT agree with his powers, and now he had to deal with not only an attempt on his life, an annoying bodyguard, a son that was driving him up the wall, a fight that was turning into a riot, and now this. He needed a break…and it was only noon.

"Yeah! Let's go beat some guys up!" said Sho. Well that was certainly enough to make him feel better. Smashing some guys' heads in or whatever. He could feel it with his aura, it felt like a big fight, and he got to get in on it! And he got to fight alongside Shimazaki…he took back all the mean thoughts that he had been thinking, before, about him. Shimazaki was way cool again. The coolest. He was cool too, by association, because they were going to beat up so many guys together!

"Don't be so enthusiastic." Said Shimazaki. He grabbed the kid by the head and teleported them right in the middle of what felt like a cross between a grade school food fight and a prison riot. There were so many things flying around that he had to put up a barrier, he couldn't dodge them all, and he didn't much feel like trying. He scanned the room quickly…though not quickly enough for some people.

"Come on! You take the left and I'll take the right and then we'll meet in the middle!" said Sho. This was just like in the movies. They'd fight their way to the middle and then they would stand triumphantly on top of a pile of bodies, just knocked out not dead, and then they would eat pudding cups and also he would draw them afterwards…and it would be good.

"Sure, go on kid. Do your best." Said Shimazaki. He heard the kid start yelling and then 'saw' him running into the middle of it. His aura got all mixed up in the shouting of the upper and lower echelon member's fray. So many different pitches, so many different volume levels….it was overwhelming. He shut out everything that wasn't an esper's aura. He shut out all other stimulus…

And then opened his eyes.

The biggest guy in the room. There. In these situations it was best to find the biggest, strongest, guy in the room and take him out…and that guy was certainly big and strong. It was like he had turned himself inside out, sent his powers inwards, until every inch of his body was screaming with his aura….and what a body it was. Tall, taller than him by so much…and strong too. Well then. This was going to be…interesting.

And it was.

It was a shame that it had to end. He was right, taking down the biggest guy in the room ended the fight, though the kid did help by taking out a section of the wall…and thankfully it had not been a load bearing wall. Or maybe not, actually, since if it had been a load bearing wall it would have been far more interesting. Still, between knocking down a wall, taking out the strongest guy, and one idiot getting naked for some reason and covering himself in ketchup and mustard…the smell would linger for days most likely….it had ended relatively quickly.

Such a pity, it had been fun…though not as fun as seeing what the boss would do to the guy who started the fight…and for such a truly insane reason….

"Explain again." said Suzuki. He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry or to do some unholy combination of both. He settled on doing nothing, keeping his face and his aura as impassive as usual, because that was what was best. Even when his subordinate dragged his newest upper echelon member into his office…covered in God only knew what….with such a truly absurd story.

"Yeah, tell the story again!" said Sho. That had been the coolest thing ever! And to think that the whole thing had started over a cookie. It was nice to know that adults sometimes lost control too. Well he knew that they did, dad was always worried about that, but it was nice to know that adults sometimes lost control in the way that he did and it wasn't the end of the world. Though he had never lost control that badly before…

"He took the other guy's cookie and so that guy kicked him in the nuts. I didn't think that it was a fair move, kicking someone in the nuts, so I intervened…and then it got out of hand." Said Shibata. He wasn't afraid of Suzuki, he had the size advantage and better reflexes, and he had done nothing wrong. He fought people, that was why he had been recruited in the first place, and it wasn't like this was an organization devoted to peace and love. Well he still wasn't entirely sure what they did, Suzuki would not have been serious about taking over the world, he knew that this was not the place for pacifists.

"Some guy was naked and screaming and covered in food." Said Sho helpfully. That was the best part. As soon as dad finished punishing this big guy then he would totally get to drawing that. When he became the President of Claw, and the world, they were having weekly if not daily food fights. That had been the most fun thing ever!

It totally was!

Even if he had gotten scared a little bit, lost control, and knocked down that wall…but he could just blame it on the fighting later. Dad would totally have believed that it was all of those other guys. If he didn't…well it wasn't like that had been an important wall or anything like that. It hadn't been the wall with the drink machines or the vending machines. It had been the wall with the posters about what to do if someone choked on food and it was ok to mess that one up because if you didn't know to slap someone on the back then you were some kind of moron.

"Yup, that was a thing that happened." Said Shimazaki as he poured himself another glass of the boss' expensive cognac…no, wait, brandy this time. Whatever, anything to get the ringing out of his brain from all of those auras screaming at once.

"He was licking the floor, too." Said Sho helpfully

"He really was." Said Shimazaki before he downed his brandy much more quickly than was strictly necessary. Damn, that was good shit. Why it was wasted on Suzuki he would never know. The universe could be a bitch like that. That poor guy in front of the boss was about to know firsthand just how much of a bitch the universe could be once the boss put him in the ground for starting shit. He hated it, when people started shit, even though it was so incredibly easy to start shit. Everyone, or at least the upper echelons, were about two steps away from killing each other.

God, he loved it here.

"That….I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the information." Said Suzuki slowly. Well then that was…out of the ordinary. Not that these massive brawls were ordinary. He had no idea what was wrong with everyone sometimes. There were times, even, when it seemed like everyone in his upper echelons was about two steps away from premediated murder and he was the only thing keeping the bloodbath at bay.

God, it was so tiresome here sometimes.

"Punish the guy for flashing everyone? I mean, honestly boss, in the grand scheme of things flashing everyone and kicking guys in the junk is a hell of a lot worse than picking up a table and throwing it at someone. I mean yeah, some people got hurt, but that healer guy is on it." Said Shibata. The adorable little boy was shaking his head a bunch. The President's kid, it looked like, based on the hair. Shibata just wanted to pick him up and hug him and squeeze him and never let him go because he was just the cutest little thing in the whole wide world…but he had to maintain the image the boss had of him…

And also that was the sort of thing that had lost him his job at the pet store.

"That is neither here nor there…but I am…impressed….as to how you were to handle so many people at once." Said Suzuki. He did not like being told what to do, or what he should have done, even if it was a good idea. When he needed someone's counsel he would ask for it…though in the grand scheme of things it was the sort of annoyance that he was used to. Fukuda had been offering up his counsel since the day they had met. Yes, in the grand scheme of it, of annoyance, that ranked pretty low.

A lot lower than raiding his liquor cabinet and dripping ketchup, mustard, and God only knew what else around his office.

"It was nothing, boss, I didn't even have to go all out." Said Shibata with a shrug. He was worried, he hadn't even been here a month and the boss was pissed at him, but it was a worry softened by the truly adorable little human looking up at him. The kid was looking up at him with wide eyes now…and he just wanted to pick him up and toss him in the air! How could one little human be so very adorable!? And how could such an adorable little human have come from such a joyless man as President Suzuki?

"That wasn't you going all out!? You were HUGE! You had, like, ten guys up in one hand! You were like ten meters tall! You were-" said Sho. Ok, this guy was cool. This guy was so cool. Not as cool as Shimazaki…but still so cool! And then he could be cool too if they were all on a team or something….because they did fight really well together….

He kind of wanted to go back downstairs and start another fight just so that they could have all fought on the same side.

"Son, quiet." Said Suzuki. He looked between the two of them, Shimazaki and…what was his name again? He'd look it up later. He seemed more…pleasant…and personable than Shimazaki. He had even taken care not to touch too many things considering the state that he was in…and Suzuki liked that…and he had needed a new body guard for a while.

"If you want to get rid of me over this I understand. It was a pleasure working for you and-" said Shibata. Well that was fine. It wasn't like he hadn't been fired before. At least this time it wasn't for hugging and petting the animals too much…they were so fragile…and it wasn't like the time that he had run the kiddie train at wee world…kids were so fragile too…yeah, he could handle this. Even though it had felt, for a little bit, like he had found a place where he could have made something of himself. A place where there were other people like him…but this was ok. He could always go back to beating people up for the Yakuza….even though that job sucked…

"Get rid of you? No, in fact I have just the assignment for you." Said Suzuki. The advantage of having Shimazaki around was that he could see threats before they became problems. His resting range was amazing as were his reflexes and ability to predict his opponent's movements. The detriment to having Shimazaki around was that he was so, truly, annoying….a whole other level of annoying….

Did the bad outweigh the good?

It didn't matter. It wasn't like he couldn't have had two bodyguards. He had been needing another bodyguard for quite some time anyway.