The only thing worse than flying was flying with these idiots.

Shimazaki to the left of them, Shibata across, the Suzuki family up front, and Fukuda over in the corner with his nose turned so high up in the air that he risked downing if it started to rain. This was the part of the job that they hated. Not the long periods of boredom, not the fact that they ha at some point become a fulltime nanny to the biggest egomaniac in the world, and not even the sudden middle of the day moving announcements.

No, the flying with the idiot brigade was the worst part.

"Oh my God, there's someone on the wing of the plane!" said Shimazaki

"I'm not looking. I know that you're messing with me. You said that the last time we flew together and I looked. Then you made fun of me for trusting you. I'm not doing that again." said Shibata

"I'm serious this time." Said Shimazaki

"You're never serious." Said Shibata

"Well I am this time. Look out the window. I'm telling you that there is someone out there right now on the wing of the plane." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi opened their eyes. He was smiling that stupid smile he always had on when he thought that he was just oh so clever. Well he wasn't. He did this EVERY single plane ride they took. He was the reason that they had to sit in the back…not that Minegishi was complaining about that.

The less time spent in close proximity to Suzuki the better.

They lifted their head just to check on Mob. She was trying to calm her brother down or something. He did about as well on long plane rides as Shimazaki did. At least the little monster didn't have a dart gun this time. No, now he had a pencil that he was jabbing her with. If Minegishi had been in charge they would have taken that thing from him, it looked sharp, but they were not in charge. Not of the kids and not of the idiots around them. They closed their eyes.

This was going to be a long flight.

"I'm not looking out that window. If I look out that window you're going to laugh. Not just a little, either, you're going to spend the whole plane ride laughing at me and then I'll get mad at you and then it'll turn into a thing." Said Shibata

"You sure? Because I'm telling the truth. I can sense someone on the wing of the plane right now. You know I have the best range out of all of us." Said Shimazaki

"There's no monster on the wing of the plane." Said Shibata

"I never said that it was a monster. I just said that there was someone on the wing of the plane. Probably an esper. You know an esper could totally survive out there on the wing of the plane at whatever thousand meters this is. Come on. Don't you want to look? Satiate your curiosity?" asked Shimazaki

"I…I guess there could be someone out there." said Shibata. Poor, poor, Shibata. Minegishi wanted to tell Shimazaki to drop it already but they knew that there was no telling Shimazaki to drop anything. Once he got an idea into his head it just had to happen and right now the idea in his head was that he was going to annoy and entire plane full of people.

It was a private plane, very small, but the point still stood.

Minegishi didn't know why they put up with this. Why they had been putting up with him for years…well the sexual reasons. Obviously the sexual reasons. He was good at what he did. Supernaturally good. The whole predicting his opponent's movements thing translated well but they were very close to just buying a toy and kicking his ass. They couldn't quite or move to a different part of Claw, Suzuki wouldn't let them and they didn't want to leave Mob anyway but they could make him leave them the hell alone.

But they wouldn't.

Maybe they were stupid. Maybe they were a masochist. Maybe they were just chronically bored and needed the constant stimulation he provided. Mental and physical. Shimazaki maybe have been annoying but at least there was never a dull moment when he was around. That could be good and bad, though, depending on his mood and how much excitement he'd had in his life.

Things had been pretty boring around here, lately, so he had to make his own fun.

"There is. Think about it. It's such a classic bit. If you could survive out there then wouldn't you? Just to mess with people?" said Shimazaki. Minegishi did not let themselves smile. Someone was projecting. They knew how this was going to go down. He'd actually, and Minegishi was ashamed of this, gotten them like that before.

They had finally looked after twenty minutes of being pestered.

Nothing at all had been out there. Not that they had actually believed him. They hadn't come to the conclusion that if he was so insistent that he must have been telling the truth. They had known him better than that but that point in their…whatever this was. They had looked, seen nothing, been prepared to ignore him for the rest of the trip, but then found his seat empty. They had looked outside again and saw him on the wing of the plane being an idiot.

History repeated itself.

Minegishi had to open their eyes, sit up, and watch this. They had to see this. Not that they cared or anything. This was just something interesting. Something to take the edge off. Well something more to take the edge off than they had already taken. Something to distract them. Those two idiots were good for that. Shibata hadn't seen this trick yet. Last time Shimazaki had just teased him for looking. So Minegishi hadn't seen his reaction to this.

That was all they cared about.

They opened their eyes and sat up…and met Mob's eyes. It took every fiber of their being not to jump back. In an enclosed space with all of these auras, plus the lack of plant life, it was easy for Mob to sneak up on them. Minegishi gave Shimazaki a light shove. He was still convincing Shibata to look out the window, still swearing up and down that someone was out there, and he was getting to be kind of grating. Mob was much better company anyway.

Even if she did smell like an ashtray.

"Well? Come on, sit." Said Minegishi. That was a little more short than they had intended it to be but they were feeling kind of short. They were thousands of meters in the air sealed up in a tin can with these idiots and also the ten year old whose life they had probably irreparably messed up.

Still, though, judging by the scratches on Mob's arm and the bits of colored graphite stuck in them she had enough shit to deal with in her life.

"Hi. Sorry, I just wasn't sure if you were asleep or not. I just know that you take medicine to sleep on long plane rides and they make your aura weird, well not weird but hard to read, and also it's hard to read your aura when you're in a plane. I didn't mean to bother you. I just thought that I should get away from Sho. Me being near him was making him upset." Said Mob

"You're fine. You're better company then these two idiots anyway." Said Minegishi. They wished that they had their bag, They had tweezers and bandages in it, hazards of the job and all of that, and Mob needed some help with that arm. Suzuki really needed to do something about that little demon he called a son before he ended up doing some real damage.

Like making his sister lose control of her powers while they were thousands of meters in the air. That wouldn't have been good for anybody.

"I don't think that they're idiots….Shimazaki can be sort of annoying but I don't think that he's an idiot…even if he is doing something kind of…not very smart…right now." Said Mob. She pointed out the window. That moron ruined the joke. It wasn't as funny if he was on the wing of the plane the whole time.

"Oh, look, there's an idiot on the wing of the plane. Whatever shall we do?" asked Minegishi rolling their eyes. They'd seen it before. Seen it once and you got the gist of it. No reason to crane their neck over and keep on staring. Yeah, they didn't need to see that idiot accidentally get pulled into a jet turbine. It would ruin their appetite for the tiny plane peanuts that must have been somewhere.

"He is being kind of…sorry! That was a mean thing to say. Please don't tell him that I almost said something mean about him. I'm not supposed to be mean." Said Mob

"You're right. He's acting like a moron." Said Minegishi

"I…I shouldn't even think like that because it's mean and…stuff." Said Mob. Minegishi rolled their eyes.

"Well some people need to hear mean things like that. Maybe if you tell an idiot that he's an idiot enough times he'll finally get it through his thick head that he's an idiot." Said Minegishi

"But…wouldn't it be better to say something like 'please don't do that?' because that way it's polite and nobody's feelings get hurt." Said Mob

"You've been telling him to step off for I don't even know how long, now. Either you don't mean it or he's not listening." Said Minegishi. Shimazaki had better lay off of Mob. She was ten. She didn't know that he was kidding. Right now she just thought that he was trying to annoy her, which he was, but she didn't see HOW it was that he was annoying her…or that in a few years it might have been something that he wanted her to take seriously. Minegishi was torn about that little eventuality. On the one hand they were unnecessarily protective on Mob but on the other hand she could hook up with whoever she wanted when she got older. Minegishi was not her parent, they did not decide these things for her, and they were not a hypocrite either. They were not going to stand there and tell her not to do what they had done and had no regrets about. The whole 'do as I say, not as I do' thing was for people who couldn't own up to their own behavior. She would do whatever she wanted, Minegishi couldn't do more than make sure she didn't end up ruining her life.

Besides, they had nothing to worry about anyway. She was too smart for him.

"Don't be so polite, Mob, he's a moron and he knows it. That's why he acts like this. He has just enough self-awareness to know he's a moron but not enough to stop being a moron." Said Minegishi. God, he really was such a moron. He was still out there, doing handstands of all things, even though he knew that he had the boss' attention. Suzuki hated anything that gave people joy. Minegishi could feel his aura.

Pissed off.

Minegishi didn't care. It served Shimazaki right. He could never just sit still…well unless he was trying to do something juvenile like pop out and scare someone. Really if Suzuki decided to just flick him off the wing of the plane then it would be his own fault. He was asking for it. Especially since he got Suzuki's kid all riled up. Now he wanted to do that. If Minegishi had been in charge they would have said 'by all means' and let nature take it's course.

But they were not the one in charge. Sho was a lucky boy.

"Why is he doing that? Doesn't he know that it's dangerous? Doesn't he know that he could get really hurt or even die?" asked Mob

"Because he's an idiot, Mob, he's an idiot nothing more." Said Minegishi simply. What else was there to it? He did the things he did because he was a moron. He was stupid enough to think that if something came into his mind, no matter how dangerous or stupid, it had to happen. He needed chaos or he would become the chaos. He only allowed himself to become the chaos because he was stupid. It was simple.

"Toshi, you're mean." Minegishi was really out of it. They didn't feel the shift in the energy around them that usually came before he teleported. They had missed it twice. Whatever. They weren't freaked out or anything like that. They were not getting sloppy or too accustomed to him. They were just out of it because they were such a firm believer in poisoning themselves slightly in order to make their life just a little bit easier.

"They don't like to be called Toshi." Said Mob. Minegishi wondered why she even still bothered. The only way to get him to stop was to ignore him. Like an oddly colored mole that was constantly changing in both shape and color the only thing to do was ignore him until he went away…and that would work out as soon as Minegishi figured out how to start ignoring him.

"Whatever you say, your Ladyship." Said Shimazaki. He bowed to her, deep enough that anyone but her would have known that he was kidding, and then blinked out of existence for a moment. Their reprieve from his presence was short. He came back just as quickly as he left. This time with tiny liquor bottles in his hands.

"I'm not a Ladyship." Said Mob in a way that could only be described as 'adorable' though she didn't know it. They wondered if she would ever grow out of it. They hoped that she didn't. They hoped that she was smart enough to use that, her adorableness, to her advantage someday. Hopefully when she took power from her father after he went the one step too far and she snapped.

It was only a matter of time.

"Aww, her Little Ladyship." Said Shibata in that same tone he would use when talking about a puppy or a kitten. Why that man had never just had his own kids to fawn over Minegishi did not know. Not that they were volunteering or anything. No, let someone else lay down on that wire.

"Really. I'm not a Ladyship." Said Mob

"You're a little girl with a title, therefore you're her Little Ladyship. Since you have a title and the power that comes with it you can decide what you do and do not want to be called. Now give me one of those before I get a migraine." Said Minegishi. They were passed a tiny bottle. Mob reached over and took it from her. Her own tiny bottle was tucked into her sleeve.

Right, her father was there.

Suzuki's aura hurt a little. He was pissed off. Well of course he was, his kid was acting up again, and it was way too much effort to get up off of his ass and do some parenting. No, that was something best left to the ten year old. No wonder Mob was on her way to a drinking problem. Minegishi knew that they had their part to play with that but, well, they also didn't like beating themselves over things that would have happened on their own anyway.

Suzuki could have driven anyone to drink.

"I don't have a title." Said Mob

"Your father thinks he's the king of the world so I guess you're a highness. Yeah, I like the sound of that. From now on you're 'Your Highness, Princess Suzuki'." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi glared at him and they knew that he noticed. They'd just had a somewhat violent talk about this. Flirting with a ten year old was creepy and there were only so many ways a person could take that. None of them were good. Also her father, their boss and the guy who frequently had people 'removed', was sitting right there. They had no idea if he was even paying attention to anything other than his smug sense of self-satisfaction but they weren't about to test him.

"You are dressed in a princess costume." Said Shibata

"These are just my normal clothes." Said Mob. She tugged at her dress, the blue one again, like she was self-conscious or something. What she had to be so self-conscious about Minegishi did not know. She was amongst friends. Let her feel constantly self-conscious in her teen years like everyone else.

"Therefore you're a-" said Shimazaki. Minegishi tapped their aura against his with more effort than it should have taken. They could not wait until this little trip was over. Land. They needed land with plant life….or at least to be away from these morons.

"Annoying. Shimazaki, you're annoying." Said Minegishi. There were several other words for what he was but Minegishi did not feel like using them. They weren't as articulate as they would have liked to have been. Maybe piling a tiny bottle of…they read the label of the tiny bottle in their hand…plum wine? Of all the things…whatever. It was a bad idea but they needed rest.

"That's what you guys love about me." Said Shimazaki

"No, not really. You've been extra annoying lately, actually, and it makes me not like you. Not that I don't like you! We're friends, if you want to be, it's just that when you say annoying things or do annoying things it makes it…it makes it kind of hard to be your friend. That's all. But it's ok! Minegishi says that when people get back to trying to kill my dad on a regular basis you'll be a lot easier to be around because without excitement you get bored and annoy people because you have to have other people validate your existence or you forget that you're real. How does that work? I mean if it's ok to ask." Said Mob. Minegishi said nothing to that. They didn't say things that they weren't prepared to stand behind.

"Toshi, why do you have to go around telling people about my personal existential crisis? I don't go around telling people that you're really a-" said Shimazaki

"You shouldn't tell people's secrets. It's not very nice…and also I'm sorry that I told yours. Minegishi didn't tell me that it was a secret…and also they shouldn't have told your secrets since you guys are best friends….but I really am sorry that I told your secret and also about how you don't know that you're real unless someone tells you that you are." Said Mob

"Wait, so this is real?" asked Shibata

"Yes. It's a serious medical condition." Said Shimazaki

"He's lyin-" said Minegishi

"It's a serious medical condition that I seriously have and it has seriously messed up my life in a very serious way. Seriously." Said Shimazaki

"Wow. So do you take meds for that? Like, how do you even…function?" asked Shibata. Minegishi wanted to get up and strangle him…but that would have involved getting up. They wished that there were plants on this plane. Even if they would have been suffering it still would have been nice to have the option of strangling people that, obviously, needed to be removed from the genepool for the good of mankind's collective IQ.

"Whatever I find, I take. Speaking of, cheers." Said Shimazaki. Everyone but Mob clinked their tiny bottles of what was sure to be crappy wine together. Mob was smart enough to know that if her dad caught her drinking then it wouldn't end well for anyone…..though it amazed Minegishi that Suzuki hadn't noticed by now that his ten year old spent her days at least a little tipsy…but then again the man seemed to have no interest at all in being a father.

So that had been his love child after all.

It had been a terrible thing that Suzuki did. Not the getting some unnamed woman pregnant. Minegishi didn't care who was pregnant just so long as it wasn't them. What was terrible was how he thought that leaving the baby with, no, that abandoning all three of his kids together was a good idea. How letting them bond with their baby sister was a good idea. How ripping their little sister away from them was a good idea.

What a thing to do to your kids.

No wonder Mob drank her tiny wine like she had been lost in a desert and this was the first drinkable liquid that she had seen in days. Not that drinking wine when you were dying of thirst was a good idea. Alcohol just dehydrated you more. Just like drinking, ultimately, made your problems worse. Sure you felt better but it wore off and then not only did your life suck but now you were hung over to.

Minegishi really needed to learn their own lessons.

That was why they made no move to stop her. They were not a hypocrite. They were not going to forbid Mob from doing the same exact thing that they were doing at her age. They would, however, be pissed at themselves for starting this in the first place. Well it was what it was. You put the toothpaste back in the tube and all that. Nothing else to do but have a drink with a ten year old and enjoy the look of horror on Shibata's face as Mob drained her tiny wine bottle without stopping for air.

Must have been a bad day.

"I didn't know that you had a serious medical condition. I mean I knew that you were born without eyes and also sometimes have conversations with yourself in your sleep but-oh no! That was something else that Minegishi told me. Was that a secret too? I'm sorry that I told everyone." Said Mob breaking the silence that formed around them before it could become awkward.

"I do not talk in my sleep." Said Shimazaki

"You do." Said Minegishi and Shibata at once. Minegishi didn't even bother to look in his direction. So what. They didn't care. Shimazaki could fuck, or more likely be fucked by, whoever he wanted. They didn't care. He was annoying. He talked in his sleep and sang when he was awake no matter how many times you told him to shut his mouth. He ate cup after cup of pudding and then left the empty cups stacked on the table in a pyramid even though that was infinitely more difficult than putting them in the goddamned trash can like a functional human being. He hit on ten year olds for shits and giggles. Minegishi didn't give a damn about him or what he did or who he did it with.

Where was the wet bar on this stupid plane?

"It's ok. M-My little brother-brother kicks in his sleep." Said Mob. Little brother. Why did she have to say little brother? With those two words said little brother decided that he had been granted invitation into whatever this was. Mob was coherent enough, she was starting to stutter a little bit, to hide her tiny wine bottle in the space between the seats. Hopefully nobody sat on it…and nobody got the idea that it would be a fun prank to have someone sit on it. There was a healer right there but, yeah, Minegishi did not like dealing with that asshole.

Anyone who followed Suzuki around, who had managed to do it for decades, could not have been a pleasant man.

That is by Claw standards, anyway.

"I do not." Said Sho. Minegishi took another drink. Great. This kid. This kid was one of the reasons why Minegishi did not want kids. Aside from the responsibility, lack of money, lack of autonomy, and lack of personal time that came from having kids they could also end up like this little asshole. He was damn lucky that his sister was such a non-confrontational people pleaser or he would have had another thing coming. If Minegishi had been his older sister they would have made themselves an orphan ages ago. Mob put up with too much, way too much, though they were reluctant to think that since the kids was full of surprises.

Like jabbing his older sister enough times with a pencil to draw blood.

They wondered why Mob hadn't gotten those scratches looked at. Her brother had managed to draw blood. That warranted a trip to the man in the corner shooting everyone dirty looks. Honestly. What did he have to be so high and mighty about? If he had been with Suzuki from the beginning like he said then he must have done something a lot worse than killing a few people and feeding their bodies to plants.

You couldn't be a member of Claw for long without getting your hands a little dirty.

"Yes you do but you just don't remember because you're asleep. Maybe you should sleep now, little brother, so that way your body will be in the same time zone as our new one." said Mob. Smooth she was not. Minegishi could easily see the 'go away' in what Mob had said. Her little brother could see it to, he hadn't totally inherited the Suzuki family social impairment condition, and he looked like he was about to say something…or start something…

Well if he did then Minegishi was ending it.

Forget Suzuki being right there. If he didn't want his Son getting what was coming to him then he should have done some real parenting years ago. They weren't going to hurt the kid just show him that, yeah, he did not get to just draw blood and be on his merry way. No. That was not how it worked and one day he was going to push his older sister too far and then they would end up like the Eighth Division.

"I'm not tired. Anyway, Shimazaki, can you take me out on the wing of the plane next? Please! It'll be fun!" said Sho. Minegishi decided to let the herd thin itself out there. No need to mess with evolution. Sometimes it was best to let nature do what it had to do.

"Sho! No way! That's dangerous and you could-" said Mob. She tried to stand up too fast and stumbled. Minegishi helped them as best as they could but their own movements were a bit sluggish now. They took back everything that they said about plum wine…and also they felt like something of a hypocrite. They were doing something that they had told Mob never to do…

But she was a kid and they were an adult.

They knew their limits. Yeah, fine, taking these two things together was the death combination but they knew their limits. That was why certain things were alright for them but not the ten year old who had attached herself to them.

"Sure thing, kid, just let me finish this…and get me a pudding from the snack cart first! Double chocolate if they have it and plain chocolate if they don't." said Shimazaki. Minegishi rolled their eyes. Sugar was poison…and they were not being a hypocrite because stoned Minegishi was a different person entirely from not stoned Minegishi. Not stoned Minegishi remembered how much they hate the dentist and loved having a functioning pancreas. Stoned Minegishi only remembered how much they liked orange soda and chocolate.

"Wait, this isn't such a good idea!" said Mob. Nobody was listening to her. Shimazaki never turned down a chance at some excitement, Minegishi couldn't be bothered, and Shibata was pulling up his camera app. Suzuki, the one who should have been stopping this unless he felt like having another love child, just sat there scrolling through his laptop without a care in the world.

"What if they just have vanilla?" asked Sho. This kid had no sense of self preservation…or maybe it was just a case of monkey see, monkey do. Shimazaki had a soft spot for this kid. Said that Sho reminded him of a younger version of himself…God have mercy on us all….and that was why he let the kid hang off of him whenever he got the chance. Also, apparently, women liked blind single fathers and not only did you get unlimited dog pets but unlimited phone numbers too.

Well good for him.

"Then I'm teleporting you out there but you have to find your way back in." said Shimazaki. Mob gasped. She was right to gasp. That may or may not have been the truth. Not that Shimazaki would have let the little monster die, no, he would have just let him fall a few hundred kilometers before saving him.

Just for the fun of it.

"Sho! Don't ask him to-" said Mob. Minegishi looked over towards Suzuki. Nope. Still no plan, it seemed, to stop his son from killing himself out of his own stupidity. Minegishi wondered what his endgame was. What did he think was going to come from leaving the parenting to a ten year old? At this point just leave them in the woods for the wolves to raise.

"Sho, come here. I want to see your drawings." Said Fukuda. He glared at everyone. He actually took the time to glare at each other them individually. Even Shimazaki, who he knew full well was blind, and at Mob who was trying to stop this insanity. Minegishi glared right back. If he really was bestest buddies 'til the end of time with Suzuki then, maybe, he should have told him to get off his ass and be a father to their children.

But no, he didn't, he was too busy feeling superior to people.

"Sho, go to Fukuda. He misses you." Said Mob. Sho looked between his two options before sinking his shoulders and going back to his seat. His father said something to him, based on their auras it was something unpleasant, and then Sho carried his sketchbook over to Fukuda before sitting beside him.

If Minegishi had been more immature they could have said something about a grown man wanting to spend time alone with a nine year old boy…but they were neither immature nor were they sexist.

"Mob, go to him too. You're covered in scratches." Said Minegishi. Shimazaki was talking about doing an encore performance, now, but Minegishi didn't care. Let him get sucked into a jet turbine if he wanted to. They had bigger things to worry about.

Like the ten year old beside them.

"I don't think that he likes me anymore. He always calls me 'Miss Suzuki' but he calls Sho by his given name and he never asks me to hang out with him…and also he saw me drinking and smoking and I don't want him to tell my dad and I think that he might tell me dad if I bother him. I won't bother him. These are just scratches. I've had worse." Said Mob

"I'll fix those up when I get at my bag again. For now here. You need it more than I do." Said Minegishi. They knew that they were being irresponsible as they handed Mob what was left of their wine but…but she needed it. Minegishi had known Mob since she was eight. There was no worse feeling to that kid than the feeling of being disliked. She didn't that. This had been a shitty month for her. This had been a shitty life for her. Minegishi…they were involved now. They were involved and maybe they saw just a bit of themselves in that little girl…in good and bad ways…and maybe that was why they were doing something so irresponsible…

This was not their kid.

Fuck responsibility. This was not their kid. They had a responsibility to the kid but up to a point. Sure they knew that they had started her down the river of sin but they could at least make sure that she stayed safe. They weren't going to find a soapbox and preach to her about how she could easily ruin her life, how she could end up making all of Minegishi's mistakes, but they didn't feel like it. They didn't see the point. Mob would do whatever she wanted to, she was Suzuki's daughter and he didn't look like he was about to do any parenting anytime soon, so she had might as well be smart about whatever it was that she wanted to do…and she needed someone to tell her, to show her, what was and was not smart.

Maybe they were just as much of an idiot as the ones they were surrounded by.

They didn't care.