The weather was turning cooler.

Minegishi was not a fan of winter but it was coming. The world, the world of the plant life, went dormant. The grass, the trees, all of it. It wasn't a good time at all. There was nothing that Minegishi could do, however, so they said nothing. Even as the leaves were starting to turn colors and the air had a bite to it. They dealt with it. They dug their hoodie out of their closet, filled their pockets with seeds, and got on with their life. That was what they had always done when they were faced with circumstances beyond their control. They filled their pockets with seeds and they just kept going.

No sense in driving themselves into the ground worrying about things outside of their control.

Winter was coming. It came every year. As a child they had found it much more distressing. The plants had gone quiet and the world had just felt…wrong. There had been a certain sense of wrongness that had permeated everything. There had been no escape and expressing what they had been feeling would have been idiotic to say the least. So they dealt with it as best as they could. They layered as many clothes as they could and waited for spring. They learned the trick with the seeds much later on. Long after houseplant after houseplant had been killed and harsh words had been screamed at them. Long after punishments had been dealt and meals had been withheld until they agreed to stop acting crazy.

There had been nothing that they could have done back then.

Of course the situation had been rectified long ago. They returned to that house one spring as a newly minted adult, planted some trees, and made sure that those trees had plenty of fertilizer. Yes, that was a particularly cruel way to go about killing someone. Stick a tree in them and then let the roots overtake them until there was nothing left. Yes. That had been good. They had dealt with the situation as soon as they could. Their circumstances had changed as they had become an adult and come into their own.

Mob's circumstances would change as well one day.

"So then Hatori hugged me and he told me that we were friends…but also he held my hand before that…but we're still just friends. I asked him if we could ever be more than friends, once, but he thought that I wanted to be brother and sister." Said Mob. Minegishi rolled their eyes but let her go on. They'd let her have this. Everyone had to hope for something even if it was something that would never happen. Hopefully. Because nineteen and ten was a hell of an age gap and Minegishi did not need Mob pulled away from whatever even on in her ten year old imagination to…other things.

She deserved to be a kid for as long as she could be.

Not that Minegishi thought that her feelings would ever be returned. No, that kid she was into had, for some reason, set their sights on them. They had no idea why. It didn't matter. They would never do anything like that to Mob. She didn't need her best friend sleeping with the guy she liked. That was such a clichéd plot. Also he was still practically a child. He was nineteen, he couldn't even vote in this country yet, or drink or…well…anything. Minegishi was not interested in someone that young. Or someone that annoying.

"Well you could always use more friends…and siblings I guess." Said Minegishi

"I know but I don't want that from him…I mean I like him a lot…but I want him to like me how I like him." said Mob. She blushed and giggled and, honestly, she deserved it. She deserved all the happiness she could get after the year she'd had. Ten had not been good to her. The shit with the baby and her dad and then her running Claw and now whatever other insanity was going on over in the Suzuki house…Mob did not need to deal with that. It was a lot to take in for an adult let alone a ten, soon to be ten and a half, year old. Minegishi wished that they could do more but they couldn't. All they could do was sit there and be there for her…but also make sure that she didn't end up doing something stupid like confessing to the teenager she had a crush on and end up getting her heart broken. That was the last thing that she needed on top of all of the other problems in her life.

Also Minegishi did not need the extra work of killing this kid if he broke Mob's heart. They didn't want Mob messing around with a teenager but still they also didn't want her to have to deal with a broken heart. Not at her age.

"Well he's nineteen and you're ten so that had better not happen." Said Minegishi

"I know how old I am and I know how old he is…but I won't be ten forever." Said Mob

"You're right. Net year you'll be eleven and he'll be twenty. I still wouldn't say anything to him. I doubt he'd want to date an eleven year old either." Said Minegishi

"I know not to confess to him. I'm not dumb. Even if he did like me back then dad would just beat him up and stuff." Said Mob

"Most likely. You dad is the overprotective type." Said Minegishi

"I know. I just don't know what he's protecting me from. He won't even let me leave the HQ anymore…or even sleep in my own bed." Said Mob

"Mob…when you say that he won't let you sleep in your own bed…do you mean that he yells at you or whatever when you try to sleep in your own bed…or something like that?" asked Minegishi

"No, he doesn't yell at me. He just picks me up and puts me in his bed. He says that my place is at his side. He loves me a lot. He says that he loves me a lot…and I love him a lot too…but sometimes too much of his love is…kind of scary." Said Mob

"Scary how?" asked Minegishi. They knew that they wouldn't like the answer…but how little they liked it, what the answer would be, would determine if they went on some suicide mission to try and kill Suzuki. He was a mortal man. He bled like everyone else. He aged like everyone else. He was perfectly capable of dying…the only problem was the nobody was capable of killing him besides father time and probably high cholesterol, too, from all of the eggs that he ate. Well if he was up what Minegishi thought that he was up to then they weren't going to wait for father time or a diet consisting mainly of eggs and ketchup to do him in.

"Like…sometimes he looks at me and his eyes get really small and he tells me that he'll never let anything happen to me and that I can't ever leave him and…and I don't know why he thinks that I'm going to leave him. He's my dad and I love him. Sometimes I think that he's scared that I'll go because mom left. He never said that but he makes me sleep on mom's side of the bed and he's always saying how I have to be with him for the rest of my life…and mom was supposed to be with him for the rest of his life…so that's why I think that he's just sad about mom and…stuff." Said Mob

"Mob…God, how do I even say this?" muttered Minegishi. Creepy. This whole thing was creepy. Suzuki was creepy. He had always been off but now he was just creepy. If Minegishi had been in the habit of doing armchair diagnoses they would have said that he had abandonment issues, a God complex, and also some sort of very serious and untreated personality disorder considering the fact that people didn't just wake up one morning and decide that they were going to take over the world.

Suzuki had problems.

But did he had problems to the point where he was going to use his ten year old Daughter as a substitute for his wife? That was the question. He had better not. If he did then…well there had to be some way to kill him. Maybe if they tricked him into swallowing a seed then they could tear him apart from the inside before he could even think. Or they could just wait until he fell asleep and then strangle him with a houseplant…or they could just poison him. They knew what plants were poisonous…and they knew how to make it look like an accident. Like he had just eaten the wrong kind of berry and then, well, accidents happened even to the most powerful man on Earth.

But first they needed to know if he had crossed that line before they put him in the ground and made orphans of his children.

"However you want to. I don't know what you're going to say but you can say it however you want to…but also can you say it in a language that I can understand? That way I understand what you're saying." Said Mob

"Mob…do you remember when you had those bruises on your arms a few weeks ago?" asked Minegishi

"They healed all on their own." said Mob

"I know just…he didn't…do that again? Or hurt you again in any way, right?" asked Minegishi. They had no clue how to ask Mob if her father had been doing anything weird to her. First of all Mob didn't know anything about…that. She was ten. She still thought that babies grew in a woman's stomach and true love was a real thing. She didn't need to know that sometimes fathers could be just….terrible excuses for human beings….towards their daughters.

Minegishi may have been a coward.

Maybe they had been a coward for their whole life. Maybe that was why they had joined Claw in the first place. Maybe they had decided early on to run away from the world and now they were there, in Claw, hiding from life….or whatever. They might have just been a coward. Or maybe they just didn't want to explain to a ten year old how terrible the world could be.

"No. He's been nice. He never yells at me or hits me or anything like that. He's even been letting me go to bed instead of keeping me up all night playing Minecraft. We still play that, too, a lot. He lets me build some more of my own stuff too. I made an ice castle. Hatori showed me how and dad said that it was ok even though it didn't go with the other Claw bases we made. Also I have a whole bunch more character skins and…and it's been fun. Mostly. Dad's been nice…he just won't let me go very far from him anymore." Said Mob. Minegishi didn't know if they should keep it going or just let it go. She hadn't said anything else worrying…well anything more worrying than normal…and Mob would have said something if something was just…not right. Things that weren't any more not right than things were normally in her life…

Mob would have said something.

"I take it the new characters came from Hatori?" asked Minegishi. They had changed the subject with all the grace of a three legged giraffe on roller skates. Mob wouldn't notice. She never noticed. Minegishi…maybe they should have asked more but…but maybe they shouldn't be putting those kinds of ideas in her head. She was ten and even though she had been raised in Claw she could be naive about how the world could be.

So maybe just let her talk about something that made her happy.

"Yes. He knows how to get anything in Minecraft. He even got Sho a dragon egg even though you're only supposed to get them if you kill an elder dragon. Sho does stuff like that. I just build. Sho's happy about his dragon egg even though he wasn't the one who killed the dragon. Oh! And also he knows how to get unlimited diamonds. I need a lot of those because they break when I mine hard stuff. He's really good at getting stuff in the game. He's good at other games too like…." Said Mob. Minegishi let her go on and on and on about Hatori. She was happy when she talked about Hatori. Minegishi didn't know why she had it so bad for this kid but they were still happy that she had someone who made her this happy.

She deserved to be happy.

So Minegishi listened for as long as they could. Mob certainly could go on…and on…and on. But they just wanted her to be happy…even if this was still so…so…well, draining was the word for it. She could go on when someone or something that interested her came up. She had a good time talking about that kid…and Minegishi listened for as long as they could…

Until they couldn't listen anymore. They were only human after all.

"So is he going to be joining us at some point?" asked Minegishi. That was what they wanted to know above all else. They were happy to let Mob prattle on, once you got her going there was no point in making her stop, but they did want to know if the subject of her affections would be joining them. Just so they could prepare mentally. They wished that Mob wasn't so sensitive to people treating each other unkindly otherwise Minegishi would have told this guy in no uncertain terms that nothing would ever happen between them and that he needed to come off it and stop wasting his time. This was Tokyo. Millions of people in Tokyo. Some of them might have even found him attractive. Some of those people might have even been old enough to vote. Some of those people might even have wanted to start up something with him, whatever it was that he was trying to start up with Minegishi.

They had no idea what he was trying to start up with them.

If he wanted sleep with them then he should have just said so. Minegishi could have said no and then everyone could have gone on with their lives. But no. He was asking after them and trying to get into what they were into and it was just…weird. What, did he want to go on a date or something? Well then he was out of luck. Minegishi didn't date. They didn't do the dating thing or the commitment thing or the relationship thing. They didn't believe that one person could belong to another like that and they didn't do monogamy, either, they just were not capable of it.

So, really, Hatori was better off either waiting for Mob to stop being ten or go out and meet a person his own age and who wanted the same things that he wanted…not that Minegishi would ever say these things were Mob could hear. No, she did not need to know the horrible truth of how the subject of her affections really felt.

"Yes. I can feel his aura. Dad's busy today, something happened, so I don't have to be right at his side all day. He said that I could be here but I'm not allowed to leave….I'm never allowed to leave." Said Mob

"Whatever. There's nothing out there anyway." Said Minegishi dismissively. Truth be told there was a lot more to do in Tokyo than there was to do at HQ. Also the people must have been much better company, too. There were some Awakened playing chicken on a ledge, good for them way to thin out the herd, but they weren't the worst of it. They didn't have Mob's range but they could still feel it, his aura, getting closer and closer and closer.

Joy.

Mob went on about the things there were out there in Tokyo and Minegishi listened. Even if Suzuki wasn't being weird towards her…he still had something wrong with him. He was still treating her like a prisoner. He was going to end up messing her up really bad at this rate…and there was very little that Minegishi could do. These were circumstances out of their control. They had no choice but to just…just go with it…until their circumstances changed and there was something that they could do…and they didn't know if they could wait that long. They didn't know if Mob even had that long. They just…they didn't know.

But they could still try.

And they did try. They listened to Mob as best as they could. They listened to her go on and on and didn't stop her once. They couldn't. Even if it did get grating after a while they still said nothing. They actually listened to what she said…which was a hell of a lot more than what they would have done for other people. Like her Prince Charming who eventually decided to join them. Minegishi didn't much listen to him, Mob was good about telling him that they didn't much like to be bothered, but he just could not get it through his head that they didn't want to talk to him or…whatever else he was after.

Which meant that after Mob was summoned back to her father's side they would have to take this time out of their life to deal with Hatori.

Joy.

"So, um….Mob says that you don't eat sugar. That's cool. I've been trying to cut back too since it's poison and-" said Hatori. Mob had been long gone back to her dad. Minegishi had taken to staring Hatori down after she left just waiting for him to say something. They had no idea how they were supposed to do this without it getting back to Mob and her getting upset that her friends were fighting…and also that the boy she had a crush on had feelings for her best friend…Mob did not need this. She had more than enough problems in her life as it was.

"I don't find you attractive and I don't want to sleep with you." Said Minegishi. They decided to get right to the point. Best to be as direct as possible, like ripping off a bandage, because they did not have the time or the energy to turn this into a long, drawn out, affair. They were going to be as kind as they were capable of being, of course, because this guy was Mob's friend. It was going to be an unusually long stay in Tokyo but they would be moving along probably by the end of the year. Hatori would be moving along with them since he had made friends with Mob and Suzuki loved adding her friends two his entourage even if he didn't have anything for them to even do for large swaths of time. Yeah, this kid was going to join them and Minegishi did not need his awkward pining and whatever the hell kind of bullshit that Ryou was on following them around for the rest of their life.

"Uh….." said Hatori, his mouth hanging open like he was some kind of moron. What? What was so hard to understand about what they had just said? What? Did they need to write it down in a book and then beat some sense into him with it? Well they were not risking one of their books for this moron. If he couldn't understand words then he was a lost cause and Minegishi was just going to have to live with this moron pining after them for the rest of their life.

"It's not a difficult concept to understand. I don't find you physically or emotionally attractive and I don't want to have sex with you." Said Minegishi

"I never once asked you to-" said Hatori

"You're transparent. You're nineteen and you're transparent. The answer is 'no' and, look, I saved you the trouble of even asking the question in the first place." Said Minegishi

"I wasn't just going to ask you to-I mean I know that girls…women…people! People don't like that and I would never just open with something like that." said Hatori. Minegishi's eyes narrowed. Well then. There were only so many ways he could have known that. Shimazaki could have opened his mouth, probable, or tech boy over there had gone digging through their personal files. Well wasn't that attractive?

"Shimazaki Ryou likes that. Ask him. He'd probably say yes." said Minegishi. If he just wanted to have sex then, well, Minegishi could be kind. Ryou was a lot freer in who he did that with. Probably because he was less vulnerable than them. He didn't like Hatori, for whatever reason, but he would never say no to sex. Not with a man or a woman or someone in between or someone who didn't even believe in the whole duality of the sexes thing. He'd probably end up doing a much better job of it than Minegishi ever could. He could sense everything about another person when he was that close to them. He could give a person things that they hadn't even known that they wanted. He could make a person laugh afterwards, too, because even after sex he was still such an idiot….

"I'm not into guys…and also he doesn't like me. I mean I get the feeling that he doesn't." said Hatori. Minegishi decided not to tell him that they weren't into people who were into one or the other. The people that they liked…liked people. Well they had always just liked people, their gender was of no consequence, and therefore that was what they liked in a person. If Hatori hadn't figured that out by now then, yeah, Minegishi was right to do this even though they suspected that they were going to end up emotionally devastating him.

"He'll still say yes if you ask to go to bed with him. He doesn't have to like a person to go to bed with them." said Minegishi

"But you do?" asked Hatori. Minegishi was about ready to send him off the mezzanine ledge with that stupid Awakened that was trying to do a cartwheel. What was so hard for this moron to understand? They, Minegishi Toshiki, being of sound mind did hereby declare that they were not attracted to Hatori Nozomu and would never in their right state of mind engage in any form of sexual intercourse with him! What, did they need to write a speech!? Have the Prime Minister read it before parliament? Get the Emperor in on this even though the royal family were just figure heads at this point? What was it going to take to get this teenage moron to come off it already?!

"I have to be able to tolerate them." Said Minegishi evenly.

"You don't even know if you could tolerate me…and it's not about sex. Well, ok, you've really got it going on-" said Hatori

"I'm aware." Said Minegishi. They wondered if he had been talking to Ryou at all. He said that sometimes…what it was that they had going on he never said but they could guess from context.

"See? You're hot and you know it. I think that you're interesting, too, and I've been trying to get to know you. I mean I don't know if I like you, I mean really like you, but I do want to get to know you." Said Hatori. What the…so, what, exactly? He wanted to…ask them out? Leave a note in their shoe locker asking them to meet by the confession tree? What the hell was this kid smoking and where could Minegishi get some?

"What do you mean? If you're talking about a relationship then it's not going to happen." Said Minegishi

"You're seeing someone?" asked Hatori. Minegishi wanted to slap him from ear to ear and then string him up in vines and then dangle him upside until he passed out at which point he would be dropped down onto his face. Maybe that would knock some sense into him. What, they weren't interested in him so someone else must have claimed them? Why would they or anyone else want to be with someone who thought like this? What the hell did Mob even SEE in this guy?

"No. I don't do relationships. I'm incapable of monogamy and I don't believe that one person can even just…claim…another like that. I won't live like that." Said Minegishi

"But what if-" said Hatori

"No, no what if's. There is no hope for a sexual or romantic relationship between us so you need to just come off it now before you end up making things awkward for yourself. Especially since you're Mob's friend now…or older brother. Whatever you want to call it the outcome is still the same. When we end up leaving Tokyo you're probably going to come with us and I am not living with someone who's pining after me, I don't want to deal with that, so I'm killing any hope that exists within you of a relationship between the two of us before it can get any worse." Said Minegishi

"Wait…what?" asked Hatori. He actually blinked his eyes in confusion.

"I'm speaking Japanese here which I assume is your native language. Would you like it in Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Russian, German, or Dutch?" asked Minegishi

"What the fuck….you really speak all of those languages?" asked Hatori. Minegishi shrugged.

"Some better, and some worse, than others. Now which language would you like to hear your preemptive rejection in." said Minegishi

"None. I get it. There is no hope whatsoever of us so much as getting a cup of coffee together. I heard you loud and clear. I'm talking about the part where you said that President Suzuki was planning on promoting me to being in his entourage. Like….what? Just because I'm friends with his daughter?" asked Hatori

"Yup. That's pretty much the only requirement for the job. You get to follow the Suzuki family around the world for the rest of your life now. Isn't that great? So since we'll be working together and living together how about you just forget that you ever had feelings for me in the first place. How does that sound?" asked Minegishi. That moron actually had to THINK. That crater faced, gangly, awkward, CHILD had to actually think about-

"I don't know if I can just…be around President Suzuki like that. I mean I respect him and I know that if I ever stop respecting him he'll stick me in a traitor hole but…she told me some weird stuff about him. Little Sister-sama did. She just…she told me about how he's been really weird to her but not, like, call the cops weird….not that it would do any good, but he's still being pretty fucking weird….and also she says that she's been getting high to deal with it and-" said Hatori

"Damnit Mob, can't you keep ONE THING to yourself!" said Minegishi. She could not go around talking about that! This was Claw! The walls had ears! Literally in the cases where Suzuki had actually imprisoned people in the walls….Mob should not have been telling anyone about that. Ever! Not even the guy she planned on marrying the minute it stopped being socially unacceptable to do so.

"Her dad being weird with her isn't the kind of thing that she should keep to herself. Especially if it's stressing her out enough that she feels like she has to-" said Hatori

"Use your head. That's not what I'm pissed about…and unless you want to end up as plant food you're going to keep Mob's budding substance abuse issues to yourself." Said Minegishi

"Who would I even tell?" asked Hatori. Minegishi wondered, for a moment, if this kid was being serious. There were thousands of people in Claw. He could have sent out a mass spam email if he wanted to. He wouldn't live long with that attitude. If he wanted to sing like a bird then, of course, he would not live long. Claw was not the place for that song. You kept your mouth shut and you minded your own business. Not a difficult concept to grasp at all.

"Whoever the hell will listen? Now will you keep this to yourself or do I have to kill you and tell Mob you went to live on a nice farm out in the country?" asked Minegishi

"….I'll shut up. I won't tell anyone…and I wasn't planning on it." Said Hatori

"Good. I'm glad that we could have this little talk." Said Minegishi

"But what about….the other thing. About her dad. Like….I don't even know what to do. I mean she dropped this big, heavy, thing on me and I don't even know what I'm supposed to even…do." Said Hatori

"Do nothing until you can do something. There's no way to kill Suzuki, not with your power set or mine, and we don't even know how weird he's being with this. Mob hasn't said a thing to me and she tells me everything. Suzuki might just have gone over the deep end because of…a lot of bad shit that happened last summer that I'm pretty sure is on a need to know basis and I don't want Suzuki to kill me so I won't be telling you about." Said Minegishi. Suzuki had been slipping since the thing with the baby. Now he was clinging to the last daughter he had. Not only that but from what Mob said they never even talked about their mother running away…or possibly even dying because they did not see Suzuki as the type to want to deal with explaining the death of their mother to his kids….and he had never been sane to begin with. Everything that had happened must have been enough to finally push him over the deep end into Crazy Town…more so than he had been in the past.

"How do I know when I can do something? I mean…I don't think that the way he treats her is good for her-" said Hatori

"Brilliant deduction, detective Hatori. Another case closed." Said Minegishi

"Fine. I know for a fact that it's not good for her and…and there must be someone who can…I guess talk to him? I mean he must have someone close enough to him to tell him that he's fucking his kid up? Right? I mean he's a dad and dads….they care about their kids….I mean, I know what your life was like from your file, and I know what you've been through-" said Hatori

"You don't know anything and I want to kill you right now. If Mob didn't care so much about you I would end your life right here. If you want to get yourself killed here then keep talking and if you want get yourself killed at another venue then go and tell Suzuki that you think he's a bad father." Said Minegishi

"Fine, ok, I was out of line talking about that but….he's got to have friends and-" said Hatori

"The closest thing that he has is that healer who follows him around. Fukuda. Apparently they went to school together. Go and bother him with this shit. Not me." Said Minegishi. They got up even though they still wanted to be outside. They did not want to deal with that kid. They barely had the headspace to deal with Mob let alone another kid.

Let him get himself killed questioning Suzuki, then. Minegishi had warned them. They had done their best to warn him but he was hell bent on trying to change his circumstance right now and not waiting until Suzuki was vulnerable or Mob was older and stronger…mentally. She was already a powerful esper but she was not strong enough to do what needed to be done. She was not strong enough to plant a tree…but she would be one day.

They'd plant that tree together. In the spring when the weather wasn't as cool.