There were some people who didn't go where they weren't wanted….and Fukuda was not one of them.

He went where he needed to go, he was where he needed to be, and right now where he needed to be was the Seventh Division. He'd been here for a while, longer than he'd had any reason to be, and he knew that he was well overdue to move along…but he couldn't. Not now. Not when Sho was as happy as he was.

"Faster? Do you want to go faster, baby sis?" Fukuda could hear Sho down the hallway. He had an office here, he had an office everywhere, and his door was opened. He could hear Sho running up and down the hallway pushing his baby sister in her stroller. He had told Sho time and time again not to call her that where people could hear him…but he never listened. He did what he wanted to do. He did what he had to do. He was a lot like his mother in that way…and his father too. Not that he ever wanted to think of Sho as having anything at all to do with his father.

Besides in looks, of course.

"Shush….shushhhh!" shouted Mukai. Fukuda could hear the squealing of her stroller wheels and the squealing of that baby. She was having the time of her life it sounded like. He was glad that she could be happy. That she could have a time in her life that she could be happy. He had no idea what the years would bring for her. She was Suzuki's daughter, his real Daughter, and her parentage would do her no favors. She had a brother who loved her and a sister…who loved her. Who had loved her. Shigeko had no idea where Mukai was but she had been loved…even though that time was coming to a close. She was getting older, Shigeko was, and she must have noticed that she looked nothing like anyone in her family….and that she wasn't really a Suzuki. Not by blood. She had a little sister and she looked so much like her father….so much like her brother. Shigeko….he didn't even want to think of what would have happened if he had left Mukai in that house. Suzuki was close enough to the child he had adopted….and Fukuda shuddered to think of how close he would be to the Daughter he fathered himself….

"Sho! Come on, you can say it! Sho!" said Sho. He heard the stroller turn a corner. This place was round. He'd be back around. He'd be back around and then he'd be gone and he'd be back around. That was…he was making a nuisance of himself, Fukuda knew that everyone else who lived and worked on this floor must have been sick of this already, but he didn't care. Let him make some pleasant memories with his little sister. Let that little baby make some pleasant memories….if she was capable of forming memories at this age…let both siblings be happy together before they would have to be apart again. He loved Sho, he loved it when Sho was this happy, and he didn't want to take this happiness away from him…

Even though it would have been the much safer thing to do considering how much the both of them looked like their father.

He looked so much like Suzuki it was uncanny. He had Masami's soft face, and her eyebrows too thank God, but he had gotten his hair color, eye color, freckles, and aura from his father. The resemblance was striking….it was striking between both of Suzuki's biological children. Mukai looked just like her father as well. She had a very round face, and her eyes were shaped differently, but she was Suzuki's child. Her hair, her eyes, her freckles, even her aura…they all came from Suzuki. Anyone with eyes could see that…and probably someone without eyes as well…not that he knew how Shimazaki even saw the world. Still, even he would be able to tell that Mukai and Sho were siblings.

Which was why Fukuda said nothing.

He didn't stick his head out the door and tell Sho to keep it down. He didn't tell Sho to take his sister and go back to her mother's home. He didn't tell Sho that this was not the place to be rushing back and forth pushing a baby in a stroller. He didn't tell Sho that he needed to be careful with her because she was so small and fragile and she could have gotten hurt so easily…and it was just so amazing to think that Suzuki had made something so fragile….

Fukuda said nothing.

He went back to work. He didn't just heal, no, he did a lot of administrative work as well. A lot of the stuff that Suzuki either couldn't or wouldn't deal with. Most of what he did could be done from anywhere. Right now he was working at the Seventh Division under the claim that he was monitoring the newly Awakened. The machines had been reset and recalibrated, too many people had been dying during the process and the ones who had come out acted like children….but that had been a while ago. He knew that his excuse was paper thin and he knew that, really, nobody believed him…

But that didn't matter. Nobody would be stupid enough to question him.

It was no secret that he worked closely with Suzuki, that he had been with him since the beginning, and that as a healer there was no one closer to Suzuki than him. There was no one who had his ear besides him….well there was Shigeko but she was his child. Fukuda was the only person who wasn't called Suzuki that had his sort of power, and rank, and everyone knew to stay out of his way.

Well most people did.

He felt an aura getting closer. Red and black and unpleasant. Sho's running stopped. His baby sister's shrieks of joy were replaced by fussy sounds. Fukuda wanted to stick his head out of that door and tell Sho to carry on. To tell Sho that Fukuda ranked above even a Division Leader, that Sho was the heir to this insane asylum and he outranked everyone, but he didn't. He kept still and quiet. Maybe then the very unpleasant little man who was coming his way would keep on moving right along.

Because he did NOT want to talk to Ishiguro.

"This isn't a playground. Go do that somewhere else." Said Ishiguro. Ok, now Fukuda was going to get up and say something. He did not like taking to Ishiguro, he was an unpleasant little man, but nobody talked to Sho like that.

"I can be wherever I want to be. I'm Suzuki Sho. My dad owns this place and I can go wherever I want in it. Now get out of my way, Mukai wants to go for a ride." Said Sho. Fukuda sat back down. He could handle himself. Sho…he may have been very rude but Ishiguro was Ishiguro. Also Sho had a point. Who was he to tell him what to do? Sho was Suzuki's son, his only son, and one day this would all be his…hopefully. He had to say it and these things should have went without saying…not that he wanted Sho to inherit any of this. No. If Fukuda'd been able to have his way this whole thing would have burnt to the ground long ago.

But he so rarely got his way.

This was what it was. Suzuki had built this place up from a fort in the words thirty years ago to…this. A bigger fort in the woods. A bigger fort in the woods and more playmates and a longer game, one not confined by the barriers of school time and dinnertime and bed time and all of the other times that had ruled their lives when they had been young. This was just an extension of their game….only it was real. There were times when Fukuda could just close his eyes and pretend that this was all just a game. That he would open them again and he would be a kid again and Suzuki would be a kid and they'd be in the middle of playing and that would be that…

Of course this was life, not fantasy.

"Does your father know that you speak to his subordinates like that?" asked Ishiguro. Now Fukuda was up again. Suzuki…if he knew that Fukuda was here then he hadn't said anything. Too wrapped up in Shigeko, most likely. He treated her like she was the only thing in the whole world that mattered. He acted like the sun rose and set with her. It was unnerving, to be honest, but it also made him sloppy. Weak. Unfocused. Well hyperfocused to be honest. Tunnel vision. He couldn't see past that little girl and it made him…well in many ways it was an improvement. He had been a lot nicer lately, or at least less overtly violent towards people, and that was always a plus.

But he could change.

Suzuki was predictably unpredictable. He could take things in stride, he could hyperfixate on how to fix them, or he could just explode….and Fukuda did not Sho to have to deal with that. He had his excused for being here. He was checking on the new Awakened, he was taking Sho to teach him how a Division was run, he felt like visiting Seasoning City to visit his parents' graves….all valid excuses and all acceptable….well there was a good chance that they would be accepted. Sho was with him. Sho was with him and Suzuki had told him time and time again about overstepping…but then he had slid down the rabbit hole of Shigeko obsession.

So maybe it wouldn't matter, maybe it would, but either way Fukuda had some damage control to do.

"Does my dad know that you're talking to me like this? His kid?" asked Sho. Fukuda wondered where he had learned to pull rank like that….and how he was so comfortable with it. Fukuda wondered if this would develop into a problem. He never pulled rank, ever, and as far as Fukuda knew he hadn't even been aware that he even HAD a rank but there he was.

Fukuda had to put a stop to this.

He stepped outside of his office and found Sho standing protectively beside his sister. She was pulling up his shirt, that baby, and slapping him right on a very deep….very red…scar on Sho's side. Fukuda wished that he'd had telekinesis. He would have stopped her, he knew how Sho felt about being touched, and also he would have pushed Ishiguro back too because he was close to Sho….and Sho's aura was flaring…and even that baby looked like she was gearing up with a fight…or she just liked slapping people. One of the two.

"Is there a problem out here?" asked Fukuda. He was useless in a fight. He was a healer, he as support, and if Ishiguro ever decided to fight a ten year old boy…which of course he would he had certainly taken enough head wounds to have been able to think that it was a good idea…..but Sho…well he could hold his own. He had never seen the upper limits of Sho's power but he had come from Suzuki and there was no esper in the world more powerful…

This could go so bad so fast.

"Not at all. I was just reminding President Suzuki's son that this wasn't a playground." Said Ishiguro

"It's whatever I want it to be." Said Sho. He was glaring. He was trying to stare Ishiguro down. Even though he was still wearing that damn gas mask. Fukuda was about ready to rip that stupid mask off and give him a piece of his mind…but he wasn't telekinetic. He could fight Ishiguro and his gravity control…which was just using telekinesis to make a gravity sink…Sho might have been able to reverse those but Fukuda wasn't so talented.

And God only know what that baby would be able to do.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Ishiguro? Shouldn't you be training the Awakened or looking for the Gifted Child or one of the other things that President Suzuki put you to?" asked Fukuda. He puts an emphasis on the Gifted Child. Ishiguro's biggest failure. An esper child of actual skill had been found, an esper child was rare enough on it's own, and Ishiguro let him walk right out the door. Sho was responsible for that, he knew that he had been, but Ishiguro didn't know that. All that he needed to know that he would never be back in Suzuki's good graces ever again unless he found that boy and brought him back.

Not that Fukuda was in favor of kidnapping.

No, he hoped that the Gifted Child was safe and happy with his family…wherever he was in the world. He hoped that Claw, or other people stealers, never found him. He hated that, how they did business with the people stealers. He hated…well he hated a lot of things about Claw but he especially hated that. Not that there was anything that he could do. Even with his head stuck in La-La Land Suzuki did not react well AT ALL to being questioned…not even to being questioned by the person who had been there from the beginning. He hoped that nobody ever found the Gifted Child, that nobody ever learned of Sho's involvement in all of that…

And he also hoped that Ishiguro took the hint and didn't start anything with the son of the most powerful man on Earth.

"I suppose that I do…though it would be easier if Suzuki would stop leaving his children here. Good day." Said Ishiguro. Fukuda felt the gravity shift around them as Ishiguro walked past. The stroller attempted to follow him down the hallway but Sho stopped it. He focused his aura and the gravity in the hallway returned to normal.

"Yeah, you'd better run!" said Sho before sticking his tongue out. The baby did the same. She shrieked and stuck out her tongue. Sho turned to face her and crossed his eyes. She laughed and did the same. It was cute…but Sho should not have been talking like that.

"Sho, come on. You know not to talk like that." Said Fukuda. Sho shrugged and put is tongue back in his mouth where it belonged. The baby did the same. God…she was so cute. It was amazing to think that she had come from Suzuki. Well aside from the looks…the eyes. Her pupils were small, almost non-existent. She was focused on Sho. Well of course she would be. They were siblings.

"Why not? She started it." Said Sho

"That doesn't matter, you should be nice to people, especially people who work under you….and you shouldn't pull rank on people like that. It isn't polite." Said Fukuda. That was all he could say. He couldn't just tell Sho that he hated hearing that, hearing Sho being aware of who he was in relation to everyone else. He wanted Sho to be little boy for as long as possible. He would join Claw, work for real in the organization, but that would be years from now. When he was older. He was a little boy now and he needed to be a little boy for as long as he could.

"I know but she was a jerk first. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just pushing my little sister around. There's nothing wrong with that." Said Sho

"Sho…just don't do that. Do you remember when your sister pulled rank on you? How it made you feel? Don't make people feel like that…even if they deserve it. It sets a bad example for the baby." said Fukuda. The baby looked up at him. She smiled down at her. She smiled back. That was a good sign. He never smiled, Suzuki, when they had been kids. Not even when good things happened. He just sort of…existed. His face was always frozen, well mostly, and Fukuda had always imagined that he had been that unnerving even as a baby.

So it was nice to see that his children hadn't inherited whatever was wrong with him.

"Yeah…I guess…but she shouldn't have been talking to me like that. I had to remind her who my dad was because I knew that she wouldn't have taken me seriously if I told her that I'd kick her ass….sorry Mukai…but I still could have. She's got powers but she can't do anything with them. That girl is so weak. She can't do anything with her telekinesis besides push and pull. Big sis could do more than that when we were little." Said Sho. Fukuda shook his head.

"That's the division leader, Ishiguro, and he's a guy." Said Fukuda. Sho shook his head. Fukuda nodded yes. Sho shook his head no. The baby looked between the both of them, shrieked her happy baby shriek, and then began to imitate Sho. Maybe she knew that they were related. Maybe she looked to the person who looked like her for guidance. Or maybe she was just happy to have a playmate. She must have been a lonely child, or she would be when she became a child, considering the fact that she would be raised here.

The first child raised in Claw.

Raised properly in Claw. Suzuki…when they had been young he'd had this idea about a society made all up of espers. That was before he realized, well it became obvious, that there just weren't female espers. One in ten, and of the ten one in that ten was powerful and one in…they hadn't even bothered to run the numbers, but they were low. There were very few espers that could be in the upper echelons. And then in the top of the upper echelons there were only Shigeko and Minegishi. Since it looked like Minegishi wasn't about to have any children any time soon, there was a God out there, and Shigeko was only ten Mukai was the only child to be properly raised in Claw.

It would be a very lonely life for that baby.

She would be raised in Claw. She would be the only person her age in Claw. She would be the only child and then she would grow up and rise through the ranks until she made it to the upper echelons, and she would because she was Suzuki's Daughter and would be a very powerful esper…and then it would be so lonely. Suzuki would never accept her as his child and Shigeko…she wasn't stupid. She knew, well she would figure it out, that Suzuki wasn't even her father. That he'd had a biological child….and he had no idea what she would do then. If Suzuki didn't marry her by then…a thought that sickened him to the core of his being but also one that could become reality at some point. She wouldn't be a child forever and Suzuki…he was treating her better than he had ever even treated his own wife….

Fukuda was not looking forward to the future in any way, shape, or form.

"Stop lying. I don't want my baby sister to learn how to lie. I want her to be a good person and, you know, not lie." Said Sho. He stood above her protectively. Fukuda raised his hands in surrender. He was so proud of Sho. He wished that Sho could have been there to teach that baby good from bad, right from wrong, and just…to have someone to care for….he was such a caring boy…but he couldn't. They would have to move along at some point.

"I'm not lying. That's not a girl. That's a very short old man." Said Fukuda. Sho did a double take. The hallway was empty but Sho still did a double take…and Sho couldn't have been blamed. Fukuda himself had done a double and triple take after he put Ishiguro back together after his first fight with Suzuki. He's been wearing the mask then, too, and the rest of the costume.

"Seriously?" asked Sho

"Seriously. There's a voice changer in the mask or something." Said Fukuda with a shrug. He had no idea why some people did the things they did and at this point in his life he could just accept anything…like the fact that Suzuki had two kids. Two wonderful kids. Sho, who he loved, and the baby. The perfectly normal baby. She had powers, or at least an aura, but also…she was just so adorable. So adorable and expressive and just….she was such a good baby. Such a cute baby. Such a normal baby.

"Why? Why not do a scary voice….and wear stilts or something? He's not that much bigger than I am…and also girls aren't scary. Sorry Mukai." Said Sho. The baby may not have been able to understand her brother…but she seemed to be happy to be spoken to. She smiled and kicked and just…was happy. She was so happy…and it was just…Sho was happy too….and it would be so hard to go. To take Sho from this.

"Sho…I have no idea why any of these people do any of the things they do. I swear this division…." Said Fukuda. Maybe the Awakened were just…weird….here because the entire Division was weird. Claw wasn't exactly the place for normal people but a lot of the people here….they were on another level.

"Yeah, they're all weirdos here. I don't know how baby sis can put up with them." Said Sho. The baby seemed to know that she was being spoken to…she responded to being called 'baby sis'…they had been here long enough for her to respond to being called 'baby sis'….and he had no idea how long it took for a baby to respond to being called something…but they had been here for a very long time….

"I….I don't know either. Sho….you won't have to put up with them for much longer…we may have to leave soon…because we've been here for a while." Said Fukuda. He saw Sho's face fall. He knew that Sho's face would have fallen and his aura pulled in….and the baby reached out and put her hand on his arm. She didn't hit him, she didn't tug on his shirt, she just put her hand there on his arm.

"Shush….shush…" said the baby. He didn't know if she was trying to say Sho's name or if she was telling him to shush. He wondered how much of this she understood. He wondered how much of anything she understood. He wondered how much of this Sho understood. He wasn't trying to be cruel, he wasn't a cruel man, but Sho….he was only ten. He was a child and…and there was so much to understand about all of this. Too much to understand. Too much that someone his age could never be expected to understand. Mukai…her relation to him…how Sho….how Sho couldn't be with her….how she had come into this existence. There was so much that Sho didn't know…..and so much that Fukuda was not about to tell him. Not now.

"….she's been trying to say my name…and I want to be here when she says my name. I want her to say my name so….so then she can remember me. I just want to stay until she says my name….ok?" asked Sho. He was so small there. He was ten but…but he just seemed so…small. Small enough to pick up. Small enough to hold. He wanted to hold Sho. He wanted to pick him up and hold him and make him all better.

But there was no way to make this all better.

The longer they stayed the more likely it would be that Suzuki could step away from the black hole that was his Daughter. He would notice that his son had been in the Seventh Division, not Korea, and that he was where Mukai was…she was his other child, the one he didn't want to acknowledge, and the one that Sho was not supposed to know about…..and if he knew that Sho was here…there was no telling how he would react. It would depend on his mood. It would depend on what had happened in the interim….it had been a while….it had been a long while…..

And they needed to get back.

"Sho…you know you didn't say a word until you were almost two. She might not even be ready to talk yet…but we can give…a week. How about a week? And then we have to keep on moving. We still have to see your girlfriend too you know…and also…we have to get back. I bet you miss your sister and she misses you." Said Fukuda. He didn't want to hurt Sho's feelings, to cause him any pain, but this couldn't last forever…even though it should have. It should have lasted forever because that was his little sister.

"What…what did I say? When I was two, I mean." Said Sho after a moment. Fukuda had to think for a minute. It had been dada. It had been dada and he had been one….but that had not been a real word, just a collection of sounds. His real first word had been daddy and it had come out clear as a bell and he had been two…and Sho did not want to hear that.

"It was mommy. When you were about two you said 'mommy'…and your mom was so proud. She had been trying to get you to talk for a while but, really, you just…didn't do well under pressure. Under a time limit. Your mom tried and tried and tried to get you to talk….she tried to get you to talk and you just clammed up…until one day you just started talking." Said Fukuda. An abridged version of what had happened. About how it had been Suzuki who had been trying to get him to talk…Sho didn't need the whole story.

"Oh…so it took me a while to talk…when I was little?" asked Sho

"Yes. A long while…so it might take her a while to talk, too, and we just…we can't stay here forever. We have places to be and your dad…he might catch wind of this….and we should get going. People miss us, they miss you, you know. I bet your sister misses you. I bet she's been worried sick about you." Said Fukuda. Things had been so much better here. They had been good…and Sho had been so happy…and now…well now they had to go. Things never got better, well they never stayed better. Things never stayed better. They got a little better and then reset back to their base level of whatever he wanted to call their lives. They'd go back and Sho….well happy Sho…he wouldn't see Sho this happy…not for a long while.

"I….I get it. Big sis misses me…and I miss her…and I'm going to miss little sis too…and also she's going to miss me. But I have to go….I get it." Said Sho. Sho seemed so…sad. Fukuda knelt down and pulled him close. Sho clung to him for a minute before pushing him away. The baby began to kick them both.

"She wants to walk some more….I'm going to walk with her some more." Said Sho. He wiped his eyes and then went back to the stroller. Fukuda let him go. He let him go. Sho…he was…taking this well. She wasn't yelling or screaming or breaking things….he was just…walking away with his little sister…

Fukuda wished that there was some way he could stay.

But he couldn't. He couldn't stay because then Suzuki would know. He knew how Suzuki could be. He knew that he didn't need to be in Suzuki's bad graces. He knew that Sho didn't need to be in his father's bad graces. He knew that this was for the best. Leaving.

Fukuda didn't care about where he was and was not wanted…but he cared about taking Sho away from where he needed to be.