During her father's absence Shigeko sad seen fit to go off to the races as it were.

"Fukuda! You came back!" that was the first thing out of her mouth. She hadn't been expecting him to come back, it seemed. She had actually emoted there, or her best approximation of it anyway, when he walked through the doors of Suzuki's office on one unassuming morning almost three weeks after he had left. He hadn't expected to have been gone that long and he certainly hadn't expected to come back to….this.

Shigeko at her father's desk.

It was amazing how much she could look like him, like her father, despite the fact that he was not her father at all. Not by blood. She looked just like him sitting there dressed in navy blue, she even had a little ribbon around her neck and everything, picking up where her father had left off….mostly. The building looked like someone had turned a bunch of grade schoolers loose, a hallway was taped off for the 'bi weekly chair jousting tournament', and it looked like more people were goofing off than working. In other words it looked like a child had been left in charge of the largest cult, and that was the most accurate word for it, on Earth.

Even though Fukuda saw no child there.

She was ten, true, and she was small, also true. She was even, objectively, cute sitting there behind a grown man sized desk in a grown man sized chair doing the work of grown men…but that was just the surface. That was the thing to remember when working with both Suzuki and his daughter, always look below the surface. She was young but she was not a child. She was ten going on forty. She was a smaller, more feminine, but just as dangerous version of her father.

She had wasted no time in taking over.

"Miss Suzuki. You're looking well. I didn't expect to see you here." Said Fukuda. Distantly polite. At some point they had gone from her jumping into his arms and demanding that he play dolls with her to him standing across from her treating her like she was his boss…which she sort of was. If he went by who was the more powerful esper…and who was best suited to rule Claw in Suzuki's absence.

Fukuda thanked God that it wasn't Sho sitting behind that desk.

"Yeah, well, nobody expected to see you here either. Didn't you defect? I'm pretty sure you defected." Said Shimazaki. He was sitting there perched at the edge of Suzuki's desk. Very close to Shigeko. Two cigarettes were burning in the crystal astray that Fukuda had never seen used, before, and there were two cups of he didn't know what sitting there on the desk too. His eyes made their way to the strictly decorative liquor cabinet.

A lot of empty decanters.

"I never thought that he defected. He's been on a mission with dad. I've been saying that the whole time." Said Shigeko. She reached for a drink, HER drink, but stopped herself. The movement was subtle but he saw it. She was…part of him was horrified. Part of him wanted to drag her from the whole situation. She was only ten years old! She should not have been drinking or smoking or…he did not like how close Shimazaki was. He did not like how close she was letting him get to her. He did not like how she let Shimazaki take a piece of her hair between his fingers like…like Fukuda didn't even want to think. She noticed Fukuda looking and pulled her hair back.

What.

Fukuda had no clue what he was supposed to say or do to that. To any of this. She was a child. He had known her since she was two. She was, chronologically, a child. She also wasn't. She wasn't a child in the sense that Sho was a child. She was small and cute but behind that veneer laid that same ambition and arrogance that drove her father.

After all she had wasted no time at all taking over in his absence.

"Yeah but you didn't believe it." Said Shimazaki. Fukuda wanted to tell him to get the hell of off Suzuki's desk and to get the hell away from Suzuki's daughter. He wanted to get over there, pick Shigeko up, and carry her home over his shoulder. To carry her back to her dolls and her Disney movies and her costumes and her manga. Back to childhood. He wanted to…but he didn't. That was not his daughter. He had no right to tell her how to live her life.

Nothing good ever came from telling a Suzuki what to do.

"Yes I did. I really did, Fukuda, I know that you and dad were on a mission. Shimazaki just likes to say things to upset me even though he knows that I don't like it." Said Shigeko. There was some mirth there, possibly, maybe. If she had wanted him to leave her alone, if she had truly wanted that, then she would have made him leave her alone. It wasn't as though she didn't have the power to do so. It wasn't as though she wasn't the one sitting in the boss' chair. It wasn't as though she wasn't the second most powerful esper in the world.

She was Suzuki's daughter after all.

"You like me. You know it." Said Shimazaki

"I like everyone." Said Shigeko

"Yeah, but you especially like me." Said Shimazaki

"I like everyone mostly the same." Said Shigeko

"Mostly?" asked Shimazaki

"Yes. Mostly." Said Shigeko

"And here I thought that I was special." Said Shimazaki

"Everyone is special." Said Shigeko

"That's just a roundabout way of saying the nobody is." Said Shimazaki

"What do you mean?" asked Shigeko

"Well how can we all be special? If everyone is special then being special is normal and, therefore, nobody at all is special." Said Shimazaki. Fukuda had no idea what he was listening to or looking at. Nobody talked to Suzuki like that…well he did, on occasion, but he knew to space those occasions out to when they would have had the most impact…and also if they came too closely together Suzuki would get pissed off. He would have been pissed off at this. He should have been pissed off at this. If he were in Shigeko's shoes in that moment he would have probably killed Shimazaki right there…but he was not in Shigeko's shoes…

She was in his shoes.

He was having some trouble reconciling everything that he was seeing now with what he knew of her. What he had always known of her. What he had…the way that he had been seeing her for all of these years. He had tried to see her as a child but now she just…wasn't. She was and she wasn't. She was more Suzuki's child than his actual child…CHILDREN. He had no idea how badly the baby would have taken after her father, if she even would, but he knew that…that THIS was not what he wanted for Sho or for the baby.

Sho could not grow up to be….this.

It smelled like someone had been smoking a pack a day, every day, in that office. There were empty cups everywhere. Some of them were liquor glasses, which he did not want to think about, and others were more innocent. Starbucks cups, milk cartons, juice boxes, soda bottles. It was a mess in there. Suzuki would never have let things get that bad. The man loved order in all of its forms but this…this was chaos. Well she was not her father.

In some ways she could have even been worse.

Obviously there was the obvious fact that Suzuki never, nearly never, indulged in his vices. Aside from the giant fuck up known at the new baby Suzuki hadn't ever done anything that…well…anything that could have been considered indulging in a vice. Women had been a vice of his in their younger days. He had taken the shotgun approach and just asked every single woman he met until one said yes. That tapered off around university and, aside from Masami and Pang Sujin, women had never been on his radar.

He certainly wouldn't have had one sitting on his desk playing with his hair.

A ten year old girl's vices should not have been men, drinking, and smoking. Hell, a ten year old girl shouldn't have had any vices in the first place! She was…she was and was not a child. She was not HIS child. She was Suzuki's child in a way that her siblings, Sho and the baby, never could be. Suzuki had chosen her and groomed her for this position…and she would leave him wanting. That was the silver lining to all of this.

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, no sin at all.

That was how Suzuki lived his life. He avoided anything fun. Anything that could have gotten him too much in any one direction. He also abhorred both drinking and smoking. He would not be happy with Shigeko…which was a good thing. Fukuda knew that he was thinking terrible thoughts, there. That it was a good thing that Shigeko would be punished for her vices and punished for letting Claw go to shit just to win everyone over. There was the stick and the carrot. Both she and her father seemed to believe that but where Suzuki had only used the stick she seemed to only use the carrot. She promised them raises and time off and more breaks and a thousand and one things that Suzuki would never have allowed. She probably would have promised everyone a unicorn and a castle in the sky if they agreed to follow her…and she would have done it all under that veneer of cuteness.

She knew how to use what she had.

She was a cute little girl. She knew that she was. She knew that being a cute little girl would make people underestimate her, he knew what she had threatened those less than savory business contacts with, and she knew how to use her cuteness to get people on her side. She was learning how easy men could be to manipulate, too, if what he had been witness to was anything to go off of….

What had happened to Shigeko? Where had she gone to? And when had she become…THIS?

"Oh…I never thought about it like that…but I don't agree. I think that because everyone is different, even identical twins are different people, then everyone is special in that way. There isn't anyone like me and there isn't anyone like you and there isn't any like Fukuda, too. So therefore we're all special." Said Shigeko

"Eh, you're ten. What do you know?" Said Shimazaki

"I know a lot of things about a lot of things just like dad does." Said Shigeko

"If you know a lot of things about a lot of things then, tell, where the hell is your dad? I see Fukuda but I don't see your dad." Said Shimazaki

"You don't see anything at all because you don't have eyes…but that is a good question. I can't sense dad either. Fukuda, where's dad?" asked Shigeko. It took Fukuda a moment to realize that he was being addressed. Right. Suzuki. She was asking after him. But why? She knew that when he came back he was going to be very upset with her. She had taken power from him and she was currently running Claw into the ground. She was obviously trying to take Claw from her father and if she had to destroy everything he worked for then so be it.

Almost thirty years down the drain. Suzuki would not be happy about this.

Betrayed by his own daughter….and Fukuda had to stop thinking of her in those terms. Suzuki had a daughter now…well he'd HAD a daughter. Mi-Cha or Mukai whatever the baby responded to these days, was Suzuki's actual daughter. Which was why he could not be trusted to raise her. Suzuki had ruined Shigeko and he would have ruined Sho, too, if there hadn't been so much of Masami in her. He could not let Suzuki ruin that baby girl too before she'd even had a chance at-

Where was the baby?

He had assumed that the baby would have been wherever Shigeko was. She had always been so eager to play the part of the little mother even before her father had cast her in that role. He saw no baby. He didn't see or sense Sho, either, which made no sense. She lived to boss Sho around, to pretend to be her own mother and his too, but Sho wasn't there. It was just her there, her and Shimazaki who was her…he didn't want to go down that train of thought again.

What in the hell was going on here?

"Your father had to stay behind. He had some…business…to tie up. That's all. He sent me ahead to get the matter of the baby sorted." Said Fukuda. He was not going to tell her what had transpired between him and Suzuki, where her father had been, because that was not his place. She was not his child. She didn't want to be his child. Let Suzuki explain this debacle to his kids. He was always telling Fukuda not to overstep so, therefore, he would not be overstepping.

"Is he ok?" asked Shigeko. He didn't know what to make of that. The most obvious thing to make of it, her words, was that she was concerned about her father's wellbeing. But she was a Suzuki and nothing was ever what it seemed with them. He wondered if she was asking about her father's wellbeing or hers. If she would have to give up power just as she had gotten a taste of it.

"He's fine. He'll be coming back after the matter of the baby has been sorted out." Said Fukuda

"Oh, you don't have to get anything sorted out. We've been taking good care of baby Mukai." Said Shigeko. Fukuda wanted to ask her, tell her, that if she had been taking such good care of the baby then where was she? The Shigeko that he had known, the one that he had spent countless hours playing with, would not have left that baby's side. She would not have just…just abandoned her siblings to…to sit there in her father's chair.

"You've been taking care of her?" asked Fukuda. He kept his voice level. He kept his body language neutral. She couldn't read it. She took after her father in that way. Neither of them could see past their own selves. The man sitting on her desk playing with her hair on the other hand...that was his gift. He could read his enemies movements and stop attacks before they even started. That was why Suzuki had kept him around despite his truly charming personality. He was watching Fukuda. He was trying to play with Shigeko's hair, she was batting his away with her powers, but he was watching Fukuda.

It was unnerving.

"Well she was alive this morning so…." Said Shimazaki. He had given up on playing with Shigeko's hair, now, and was instead smoking what was left of his cigarette. There were two balancing there on the edge of the ashtray. Shigeko's eyes darted down to it. That was not lost on him. Neither were the yellow stains between her fingers or the yellow stains on her teeth.

He knew that he had done the right thing…that he was going to do the right thing.

"She's still alive. You know that she's still alive. Minegishi would have told you if she had died. Sho would have told ME if she had died…and also Sho would not let her die." Said Shigeko

"You left her alone with Sho?" asked Fukuda. He kept his breathing and heart rate as level as he could. He had to. He could not show her just how…how upset he was with her. She had…she had hundreds of people at her beck and call but she left the baby alone with SHO? He was nine years old. He was a CHILD. She had left him all alone with a baby?

Who was she?

"Well with Shibata and Minegishi and also the Awakened that kept on bothering us. He's a good babysitter except for he won't change diapers but that's ok. I can do that. We're doing good, I think, we've sort of got Mukai on a schedule and she doesn't throw up nearly as much as she used to. We figured out what kind of formula she likes and what kind of movies she likes and how she likes to be rocked and how she likes to be played with and-" said Shigeko. She said more things but he wasn't listening. He could not get over the fact that she had left the baby with Sho. He was only nine years old and he was all alone with a baby. He should not have had that kind of responsibility on his shoulders. He was just a kid, not only chronologically but emotionally, and his sister should not have placed that burden on his shoulders.

If she wanted to impress her father by doing it all then she should have done it all herself.

It's a terrible thought to have. Out of context he knew that he sounded like the worst sort of monster. To the outside observer she was as much of a child as her little brother. Well she wasn't. He knew her better than that. She was nothing like Sho. She was nothing like Masami. She hadn't taken after Masami in any way despite having been raised by her since the age of two.

He had failed Masami so terribly…

He had promised to protect Sho. He had promised Masami that he would protect Sho from his father, from becoming his father, and he…he had. In some ways. Sho was nothing like his father…and that painted a target on his back. He knew how Suzuki could be towards his son and it tore Fukuda up inside that he couldn't do a damn thing but put the kid back together when it was all over. A lot of things tore him up inside. Shigeko tore him up inside. She had…she had been failed by him, too. He had promised Masami that he would take care of her…

He had failed.

He was glad that Masami never checked in with him anymore. That she hadn't contacted him in years. He had no idea what he would have told her…how he would even begin to explain himself. He couldn't. She would hate him if she knew. He loved her. He had never stopped loving her…and that was not enough. He deserved her hatred, her scorn, her ire, whatever she could throw at him he deserved. He had been the one to fail her after all. To fail her children. To fail her son…her only child….

"….do laundry too. We figured it out. Did you know that babies need their own detergent? We didn't but, thankfully, it has a picture of a baby on it. That's how we know it's ok for her. She still has eczema patches though but I've been putting aloe, Minegishi taught me how to make aloe grow, onto them and maybe it's helping. I don't know. Mukai keeps on touching it and rubbing it off so I just put more on and-" said Shigeko

"He zoned out a while ago. Just thought you ought to know." Said Shimzaki. He took the other cigarette out of the ashtray and was smoking that one now. Shigeko made no move to stop him. She made no move to do anything. She had been behind that damned desk the whole time. That was a power move. Suzuki did it all the time. He never stood up when he was speaking to people. Hardly ever bowed back, too. Hardly ever did anything that could have risked making him feel like someone's equal.

"He…did?" asked Shigeko. Shit. Fuck. Damnit. Right. This was Suzuki. This was just a smaller version of Suzuki. He should have at least been half listening. Suzuki…he did not like to be ignored. Fukuda braced himself for what was coming. She could have done literally anything to him in that moment.

"I guess that I was talking too much. Sorry. I just meant that…that there's nothing to get sorted because me and Sho ae taking good care of her. Everyone else has been very helpful too. So there's just…nothing to get sorted." Said Shigeko

"If you know how to get the baby to stop throwing up that would be great. Everything smells like baby vomit which is worse than regular vomit because of the sour milk smell. It's driving me crazy." Said Shimazaki

"It's not that bad." Said Shigeko

"I apologize for contradicting you, Your Ladyship, but I simply must. You aren't blind, Your Ladyship, you don't rely on your other senses as much as I do. Alas I've been cursed to walk this Earth without sight and, therefore, I rely more heavily on my sense of smell to get around than you do….and baby vomit is hell on Earth to me." Said Shimazaki. Fukuda wanted to kick his ass. He wanted to walk up to him and just start kicking his ass until someone pulled him off of him. Blind or not. More powerful than him or not. Shigeko was a ten year old girl and he should not have been flirting with her like that!

She either didn't notice or didn't mind.

So Fukuda didn't kick anyone's ass…even though he wanted to. He kept himself composed. So she was trying to keep the baby. That made literally no sense. She was being so illogical. She had eyes. She could tell where that baby had come from. Her father had fathered another child. A daughter. Competition for her. Suzuki may have abandoned all of them, he tended to fuck off when he knew a true explosion was coming, but he'd still fathered another daughter. A daughter. Shigeko was not his daughter.

Did she know, yet, that she was adopted?

Had she figured it out? Suzuki had two blood children that looked exactly like him. She must have noticed by now that she didn't look a thing like her brother and sister or father and mother. She may have acted like Suzuki but…but even that had its limits. She was also nothing like Masami, not in behavior or appearance, and she must have noticed this by now….

Or not. She was Suzuki's daughter...even if she wasn't.

"Don't call me a Ladyship. I'm not a Ladyship." Said Shigeko

"Suzuki-sama then." Said Shimazaki

"I'm not a sama either." Said Shigeko

"Shigeko-chan, then." Said Shimazaki. He reached over to play with a piece of her hair again. It was loose, now, she was trying to look older. Trying to act older too by the look of…that. Fukuda bit his tongue. Not his child and not his business.

"Shimazaki, why don't you just call me what I want to be called?" asked Shigeko

"Because this is much more fun." Said Shimazaki. Fukuda knew that he should have gone over there and slapped that tone out of his mouth. That tone that he should not have been speaking to a TEN year old girl in…but she was closer to him and if she didn't want him speaking to her like that then she would have said something or done something to shut him up.

"No it's not." Said Shigeko. That was all that she said. Suzuki would have had more words…or just actions. Even when they were kids, if they had ever truly been kids,

"What do you know? You think sitting up all night with a screaming baby is fun." Said Shimazaki. Shigeko shook her head. Had she…had she been up with the baby? But why? That was what the legions of Awakened were for…though this newest batch did leave much to be desired….

"It is…well not when she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming but…but sitting with her and playing with her or just hanging out with her is fun. I love how she laughs and smiles and stuff." Said Shigeko

"And I love how she's finally going to be gone and things can get back to what passes for normal around here." Said Shimazaki

"No. Baby Mukai isn't going anywhere. Dad…if dad was going to take her away from me then…then he could have at least called me…he would have warned me…or he would have-" said Shigeko

"Sent someone? Like him? Sent someone to come here and tell you that your baby sister was going to be so cruelly ripped away from you?" said Shimazaki. Fukuda let himself glare. He knew that Shimazaki could read facial expressions. He knew that he could read auras, too. Fukuda had no idea what he was the most pissed off about. Having to deal with Suzuki, having to deal with Shigeko, having to get this baby sorted out, or having Shigeko trying to keep him from getting this whole baby debacle sorted out.

Or maybe because Shimazaki had just reminded him of what he was doing.

Poor Sho. This would not be easy for him. He was such a caring person, even under the anger he was a caring person, just like his mother was. Sho would not take having his sister ripped away from him. Fukuda…he was going to do what was best for everyone involved. The world did not need another Suzuki. The world did not need another esper child twisted by Suzuki's warped ideology. The world also did not need another very angry little esper child. That baby deserved so much better than what Suzuki could be. Fukuda…he did not know Tsuchiya. He didn't know her but he knew that she had to be a right sight better than Suzuki simply because there was no worse parent in the world. There couldn't have been.

He had to think of the welfare of the child.

"Fukuda…are you going to take Mukai away from me?" asked Shigeko. She made no sense. She didn't need the competition. She didn't need someone new to look after. She didn't need her father being all unstable because he had made an easily avoidable mistake and brought a new human being into the world…

He didn't understand her.

But that made sense. He had been trying to understand her father for almost thirty years now.

"I've found someone who can take her in. That's why I'm here. I'm supposed to bring her to her new mother before your father gets back." Said Fukuda. Shimazaki teleported across the room. Fukuda almost asked him why but then he felt it. Shigeko was…she was…he knew what that felt like. Her aura hurt. She was trying her best to keep it contained, to keep herself contained. She was…she was…

She was not taking this well.

For once in her life the entire range of human emotion passed across her face. Ten years of emoting all at once. She was…she was terrifying in that moment. She was terrifying in a way that Suzuki had never been. Suzuki was either violent or he wasn't. He either hurt you or he went somewhere private to explode. She was different. She was never purposely violent…but she did explode.

But she didn't.

She downed the drink in front of her…both of them. She downed them both and then leaned back and closed her eyes. He could see her mouth moving but he couldn't tell what she was saying. Shimazaki probably knew but Fukuda wasn't about to ask him. He couldn't. He couldn't move or think or…or anything. Not when there was just the uncertainty of…HER.

"If that's what dad says then…then let's go home and…and I'll get her things packed and…and then me and Sho'll say goodbye." Said Shigeko. She pushed away from her desk and stood up. She stumbled, a bit, and in an instant Shimazaki was beside her. He put a steadying arm around her and she thanked him.

Fukuda didn't know what to make of that and he didn't even have time to make anything of this. Before he knew it he was off, teleported in the blink of an eye, and as soon as he realized that he was being teleported he was back on his feet, back safely on earth.

And off to do one of the most difficult things that he would ever have to do in his life.