You didn't get to pick your partners.
Not when it came to work, anyway. Sometimes you just got assigned to a particular work detail and since there was no arguing with the boss you just had to suck it up and deal with it. So that was what Matsuo was going to do. He was going to sit here, suck it up, and try to get through another day. That way he could save his strength so he could live through tomorrow…and the next day…and the next day…
Or he could just finally catch the damn thing, hopefully today, and then he would never have to speak to either of these people ever again.
"Do you see it yet?" asked Matsuo, his eyes trained on the school in front of him. There was just something that felt wrong, incredibly wrong, about being a grown man hiding out watching a middle school. He didn't have anything on his mind besides work, saving whoever that spirit had decided to attach to, but unfortunately the world wasn't made up of telepaths. If anyone was to look this way they'd see three grown men just camping out watching the teenage girls.
The overpriced coffees did nothing at all to make this less creepy.
"So far all I can see is a vast expanse of what all of you assure me is the color black." Said Shimazaki as he popped the top off of his coffee and added whatever the hell was in the flask he'd found in his pocket. He couldn't even remember the last time he filled this one, the one with the ridges around the top. This was either going to be really great or really shitty.
Still though, it couldn't be any shittier than the company he was forced to keep.
He preferred to work alone, really, or with Toshi. This was Claw, though, and you didn't get to choose who you worked with. Not when the orders came from kumicho himself. You didn't argue with the big boss, especially when he wanted you dead, at least not when the big boss was Suzuki Touichirou. Shimazaki knew that he was lucky to be alive right now, after all nobody fucked Suzuki's daughter but him, so he wasn't going to just teleport right the fuck out of here. It would have been easier, though, and a lot more fun. There were dogs that needed walking around here after all, and it was cold as hell in March, not to mention the fact that he just plain did not like the people he'd been assigned to work with but, also, he liked being alive.
Life may have sucked sometimes, especially when Toshi was pissed at him, but he didn't really feel like giving Suzuki another reason to want him dead.
"That wasn't funny the first time, the second time, or the third time…so why do you think that it's going to funny the tenth time?" asked Matsuo
"Toshi thinks it's funny." Said Shimazaki
"Toshiki isn't here." Said Matsuo, his hand resting on his belt. Shimazaki was just trying to rile him up. He just did it because he was jealous and bored. Toshiki had warned him already about this, what Shimazaki was like, and he was prepared…mostly. He wasn't going to lose it, he wasn't going to pick a fight he couldn't win, he was just going to get through this mission. This day. If the figured out who the spirit was stuck to then he could dislodge and capture it. He really didn't need help, especially not from these two. He could admit that despite not being a medium Shimazaki did have a better sense of these things, especially in crowds, and he could also admit that this could be kind of dangerous which was why he needed the bodyguard…though Joseph might have been there to guard him from Shimazaki. That was Toshiki's theory, anyway, and they were usually right about these things.
"Well, if Toshi had been here then they would have laughed." Said Shimazaki
"If Toshiki had been here then they would have told you to be quiet before you blew the 'stealth' portion of this stealth mission." Said Matsuo
"If Toshi had been here then they would have told you that-" said Shimazaki
"Hey, guys, the mission?" said Joseph as he tossed the end of his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it under his heel. He didn't know what he was here for, exactly, really here for. His official orders were to act as a bodyguard for the medium…and that was the confusing part.
Who his orders had come from.
His orders had always come from the top…just never directly from the top. President Suzuki made plans and his plans were implemented by the people under him and those people gave him his orders. This assignment, those orders, had come directly from the President. Guard the medium. Be there, protect him, and do whatever he could to fight the spirit…the spirit that didn't even feel like a spirit. He was not in any way a medium and he doubted that he could provide any more protection than Shimazaki Ryou could. He was here for a reason. He, Shimazaki Ryou, and the medium were here for a very particular reason….
The medium was the only person here with an actual, defined, reason for being placed in this mission.
"What about it?" asked Shimazaki as Joseph pulled another cigarette out. He reached over and snatched it out of his hand before he could light it.
"How about we actually fulfil the damn mission so we can go home already?" asked Joseph as he pulled another cigarette from the box. The last thing he was going to do was start a fight with Shimazaki Ryou. He wanted to live, and without crippling lifelong injuries, and that meant letting him act like a child.
"What do you think we're doing right now?" asked Shimazaki
"Fighting over Minegishi Toshiki." Said Joseph
"We aren't fighting over them. Toshiki is a person, not a prize, and anyway they made their choice…and their choice has nothing to do with the mission. Let's all just try and be professional about this, alright? I don't like being out in the cold any more than you two do." Said Matsuo. There was no point in fighting over Toshiki because Toshiki was his…was his partner. They had no interest in being with Shimazaki and even if they did then he didn't exactly get to tell them what to do. They had never asked each other for exclusivity and…and he had no idea why they would ever even have gone back to Shimazaki in the first place.
He had slept with Shigeko. There was no justifying or coming back from something like that.
"I don't really mind." Said Shimazaki as he reached over and took Joseph's lighter. He pulled it, and joseph over, before lighting the cigarette between his teeth. He could feel two auras on his, both of them pissed off. He didn't care. He didn't care about anything right now, not even work. Not that he ever really cared about it. Work was a means to an end, to having a place to live and a way to make a living, to being able to be still be near Toshi.
That was enough for him, just being near them.
"Well, I do so can we please just get this over with?" asked Joseph as Shimazaki let go of him. He said nothing about the blatant invasion of his personal space. He knew better than to provoke…wait, was that why he'd been assigned to a mission with this man? To get rid of him?
Always an option…but not one that made sense…but then again this was Claw, very little if anything made sense…
"If you want me to teleport in and bring the spirit, and the girl it's attached to, out then sure. Whatever, just let me finish this cigarette." Said Shimazaki
"No! No, no, let's not do anything that's going to get us on the news. The President wants the spirit captured and in tact and it's going to be a little difficult to do as he said when we're in prison." Said Matsuo
"No prison can hold me." said Shimazaki
"You'd be surprised." Said Joseph. He flexed the muscles under his ribs. That bomb was still there, the one that everyone got, and it would stay there until he had bought his freedom. Until he could go home. If it hadn't been there then he would have taken his chances and tried to defect after Shigeko had asked him to…cross some lines. Maybe even before that. Hell, he would have gone back to prison if it meant getting out of here. But no, his handlers were very clear. The only way out was either buying his freedom or being scraped off of the walls.
Prison, though, was looking better and better.
"You've been to prison?" asked Shimazaki
"I've done some time." Said Joseph
"And it actually held you?" asked Shimazaki
"Esper prison is it's own kind of hell, believe me. it's not like normal prison." Said Joseph
"What, do they beat you with sacks of frozen oranges and make you listen to EDM all day and all night?" asked Shimazaki
"You're not being funny." Said Matsuo. Esper prison was a specter that even he was haunted by. The prospect of it. He'd heard that those prisons doubled as labs where they dissected you while you were still alive, and brainwashed you and made you into a sleeper agent. This was all second, third, and fourth hand of course. He had never spoken to anyone who had actually done time in one of those places…mostly because people who went in never came out….
"I wasn't trying to be, EDM is hell on earth. It's not music, it's just noise, and it's so discordant…no way!" said Shimazaki shaking his head. He heard that they tortured you in those places…that is if they could catch you. He hadn't been caught once and he was pretty sure that he'd committed just about every single crime there was at this point in his life. There was no way he was being captured and held in any kind of prison. No, the worst thing that was going to happen to him was pissing Suzuki off one to many times and ending up another corpse for body disposal to deal with.
Not that he was planning on going at all any time soon, of course.
"It's not a good place, that's all you need to know, and they probably could hold you…that is unless you can teleport out of an energy field." Said Joseph
"Never tried, and I'm never going to have to either. I'm never getting caught." Said Shimazaki as he ashed onto Joseph's jacket.
"No but President Suzuki could…" said Matsuo
"Suzuki could what? Give me up? I thought Toshi said that you were smart. Suzuki is more likely to kill me than anything but I honestly don't think that he would. Mob cares too much about me and he cares too much about Mob….like, way too much." Said Shimazaki
"He should give you up, or kill you, after what you did to her." said Matsuo, his voice low and dangerous. He could have, if he had been stronger, taken Shimazaki…or at least caused him some kind of pain. The sort of pain that he deserved. But he couldn't. He didn't have the strength to fight him himself, physical or metaphysical, and his pets…he didn't want to waste a pet on that…he didn't even have good enough words to describe what Shimazaki Ryou even was.
"With, that's the word you're looking for. With. Mob and I were together and now we aren't. It happened, she dumped me, and now we've moved on with our lives." Said Shimazaki, ashing that time on Matsuo's jacket. He was going to keeping on hearing about this until the day he died, wasn't he? And probably for some time after since this guy was supposed to be some kind of powerful medium.
"Move on with…how in the hell do you expect her to move on with her life? She's thirteen-" said Matsuo
"She's thirteen and a half…or maybe three quarters by now." said Shimazaki
"…do you really think that helps? It doesn't make her sound older, it just makes you sound worse…and I didn't even think that was possible." Said Matsuo. He was on dangerous ground here, picking a fight with Shimazaki. Everything about his aural and body language suggested complete and total calm. The way he leaned back, the cigarette dangling between his fingers, the look of pure calm on his face…but looks could be deceiving. Toshiki had warned him about that…they had thought to warn him about a lot of things.
And yet they couldn't tell him, exactly, what they had ever seen in this guy.
"You don't know me, you don't know how much worse it gets, and anyway Mob and I are broken up now and she's moved on. Ask Joseph if you don't believe me." said Shimazaki. He ashed in Joseph's face that time. He didn't move. Shimazaki focused on him. He was taking everything within himself to stay calm. His face and aura were still and…huh. That was weird. He moved his focus downwards. It was like there was a piece of…shrapnel? Round shrapnel? Something lodged between his ribs and his lungs…he looked deeper…
And was pushed away.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, now watch the school and not me. You're not my type, anyway." Said Joseph as he used his aura to push Shimazaki's away from his. That had been…intrusive. That was the only word he had for it, for when someone looked under your clothes, under your skin, into your soul….
Intrusive.
"Not Mob's, either, at least according to Toshi." Said Shimazaki
"What are you even talking about?" asked Matsuo. If he said Toshiki's name one more time…well he didn't know what, if anything, he could do but he was getting really sick of this. They didn't even like to be called Toshi.
"He's talking out of his ass, like always. He just wants attention." Said Joseph with practiced ease. This was bad. Matsuo had already made his opinion of people who slept with Shigeko known. He may not have been a powerful esper when it came to combat abilities he could command an unlimited number of spirits. There were also work politics to take into account. The President had put them all together knowing, most likely, that there would be a conflict between Matsuo and Shimazaki…so that may have been why he was here since he was useless when it came to spirits. Maybe he was supposed to do what it said on paper and protect the asset…but why him? There were more powerful espers in the organization, ones that could do better than make walls and bindings that Shimazaki could teleport out of…why have him, here, on this mission where he had nothing in common with anyone?
He had one thing in common with Shimazaki…
Minegishi Toshiki was Shigeko's best friend and confidant. They knew everything about her. They also, apparently, couldn't keep her secrets. If Shimazaki knew, and they were supposedly broken up, then others could have known too. Shimazaki was very free with information, too free for someone who ranked as highly in the upper echelons as he did, and there was no telling who else knew…President Suzuki had ears everywhere….Joseph felt the phone in his pocket.
President Suzuki literally had ears everywhere, now that Hatori was at his side twenty four hours a day….
"I do, but that has nothing to do with the fact that for some reason Mob went from me to you…or at least she tried to. According to Toshi-" said Shimazaki
"Wait, what?" asked Matsuo
"According to Toshi Mob said that you were terrible at everything and couldn't get it-" said Shimazaki
"Do you ever get tired of making things up?" asked Joseph quickly.
"-couldn't get it up no matter what she did, which makes no sense by the way. This is Mob we're talking about. She's pretty much the whole package. She's really nice, caring, she's got a cute-" said Shimazaki
"Do you ever shut up?!" asked Joseph, slipping into English. This was bad…this was so…deny. He could keep on denying but…but that was what a guilty man would do, right? Deny? But so would an innocent man…body language. His aura. Matsuo was staring at him. He needed to act like…like there was nothing to worry about. Like this whole thing was preposterous. Absurd….of course it was absurd. Him? Shigeko? She was only thirteen, like Shimazaki had said, and there was nothing in his past behavior that would indicate that he was even capable of such things. Not like Shimazaki, no. He had a well known history of both drug use, alcohol abuse, and his relationship with the truth had never been the best.
It anyone was lying there it was Shimazaki, probably more than a little drunk right now, Ryou.
"Actually, no, not if I can avoid it. I've been told that I talk in my sleep, too. Mob said so. Apparently, I keep her up at night. She hasn't had a word to say about you, though, but that's probably because you were so disappointing that she kicked you out of bed, and this is Mob we're talking about here. She does about ninety percent of the work-" said Shimazaki in English, since that was what Joseph seemed to feel like speaking. Might as well humiliate him in his native language. He had been sitting on this one for a while. He just hadn't had the right opportunity. Misery didn't exactly sustain him but it did amuse him, other people's misery that is. It was nice to know, too, that Mob still missed him in some ways…though he would never say that. He didn't need that getting back to Toshi. They probably would have thought that he still had feeling for her and then that would have just started all of the fighting up again.
Maybe this thing with Joseph would fix some of the never ending fighting between them, after all if there was another guy…well Toshi might have been able to get it through their head that Mob made her own decisions when it came to this.
"I know enough English to understand…to…no, I don't understand! What the fuck is the matter with you people?!" asked Matsuo. Toshiki had kept this from him…this wasn't about him and he shouldn't have even let those kinds of thoughts enter his mind. This was about Shigeko and…and the fact that for some reason grown men couldn't leave her alone! What was wrong with some guys? Back when he'd been a kid, back when he'd been…back in another life had had seen firsthand how terrible guys could be…didn't they grow out of it? It was one thing if it had just been Shimazaki, everyone in Claw knew how fucked up that guy was, but this…he didn't know Joseph but he had seemed like a normal guy…as normal a guy as could be in Claw but this-this-this-
He had never come so close to quitting as he had in that moment.
"Mob's smart, cute, funny, kind, thoughtful, and incredibly attractive. Her tits are the perfect size, she's got legs from here to tomorrow, and the third cutest ass that I've ever seen in my life. She's a good friend, she was a good girlfriend, and she's pretty much the whole package. Honestly I'm not sure what SHE saw in ME? Or that guy for that matter. I mean is he good looking? Mob's not really shallow like that, I mean it seems like she's not, and even if she was…is he really that much better looking than me? Because I've been told that I'm pretty damn good looking." Said Shimazaki
"I-I-I have no idea-" said Matsuo
"I have no idea what you're even talking about here, maybe you should lay off the day drinking or whatever you've been up to today." Said Joseph
"I've barely even had any…schnapps?" said Shimazaki as he finally took a sip of his coffee. Peppermint schnapps, probably left over from Christmas…no thank you. He tossed his cup down at Joseph's feet. That at least got him to react. Good, a fight was just what he needed right now to cut through the boredom. Stakeouts were the worst, and stakeouts with these two morons was absolute torture. Part of him didn't even care if Suzuki came after him again, he wanted out of here.
He wondered what Toshi was up to right now.
"Well, whatever it is it's clearly been messing with your mind so how about you just focus on the mission at hand and not on whatever the hell you've invented to amuse yourself?" said Joseph. There. Those were not the words of a guilty man…he wasn't guilty. He wasn't. He said those words often enough in his mind that he started to believe them. He was not guilty of anything and all of…this was not his fault. He had done what he had to do to maintain his cover. He was doing what he had to do right now. He had to stay alive. Forget buying his freedom back. He needed to just…he needed to stay alive, he needed to make it through another day…he eyed the spirit belt Matsuo was so angrily grasping…
He needed to make it through another day before he wound up like that…like one of the mediums 'pets'.
"Hey, I'm completely focused on the mission. I'm so focused on the mission that I can even see the spirit. It's right there, attached to…hey, I think I know her." said Shimazaki as he pointed to someone making very slow, shuffling steps out of the school gates. She seemed familiar but he couldn't place it.
"Please don't…" said Matsuo. The last thing he wanted to think about was the fact that Shimazaki might have known that poor little girl…they seemed so young. He had no idea how Shimazaki and Joseph could have looked at someone that age and thought…thought that there was even anything to think. He had no idea…Shimazaki may have been starting something, or he might not have. He was an enigma wrapped in a puzzle and drowned in whatever it was he had been drinking…he might have been drunk…
Why had President Suzuki put him on a mission with these guys?
Shimazaki was right about the spirit…maybe. It was so big that it was hard to pinpoint it. If anything that girl felt like she was cursed…it looked like she was cursed, too. There was just this big red and black…thing…stuck to her…coming from her? He had never seen anything like that before. It looked like possession…like a bigger form of it? Usually when the spirit was even half that size the host was near death but that girl…that girl looked like she was sick, true, but she was walking. She was up and about. He could see…if he focused enough he could see that sort of white aura-ish thing that normal people carried inside of themselves…deep inside of themselves…
That either had to be the spirit that he was looking for or it was something even worse…something that he had never seen before.
"What, you want to stand out here and freeze? Well you can freeze to death if you want, and take him with you, but I'm going to get this thing over with so I can get the hell out of here and see what Toshi's up to or if there are some dogs who need walking or, I don't know, maybe Mukai wants to execute someone who sucks at marbles or something." said Shimazaki
"No, but I think that we need some kind of a plan. There are too many people around her. Alright, we know who she is and now we just have to figure out how we can-" said Matsuo. There was a lot of finesse that went into undoing a possession. If you made just one wrong move then you could make it worse, or the spirit could just completely drain the host and use that energy to run away. That thing…it didn't look like it was draining her, at least not as fast as other spirits…so maybe it was smart enough to…to what? Know to pace it's self?
That was a very bad sign…
Spirits were not supposed to be that smart. Something like that…he had never made a pet that smart and for good reason. Spirits weren't people, they didn't think like people, and actually they couldn't think like people. The were obsessive to the point of being stupid. They walked the earth with one goal and would destroy themselves to see it through. They lived without any consequences or thoughts to the future…like some people he knew…
No, this was work time. He could deal with this…he could ask Toshiki why this had been kept from him, later.
"We just need the spirit, right? So how about we just follow her until the crowd is gone and then you exorcise it? I'll get use close enough, you exorcise it, and Joseph…well he can supervise or whatever." Said Shimazaki with a wave of his hand in Joseph's direction.
"I think I can handle this myself, you both just-" said Matsuo
"She's getting into a car." Said Joseph as he made a mental note of the license plate number. He still had a job to do, he still had to keep his cover, and maybe part of him welcomed the distraction. He didn't know what was going to happen to that girl but he did know what was going to happen to him if they kept up the previous conversation. It wasn't going to be good.
The things he did for this job…for himself. For his own good.
"So, we're hijacking that car then? Huh. Could be fun. I can't drive or anything but how hard can it be?" asked Shimazaki
"What? No! What part of stealth mission don't you two idiots-" said Matsuo
"OR we can see who owns this car and then work from there." Said Joseph quickly. He held out his hands to stop them from blowing their cover. People were starting to look. Right now they just looked like three men hanging out in front of a school, suspicious. If they started shouting about how they wanted to kidnap a middle school girl they were going to draw attention from the law. The best way to work was under the radar. There were ways to get out of it, the law and it's consequences, but he had no interest in drawing even more attention to himself than he had on him now.
He just had to get through this and then…and then he would take it from there.
"Good, we'll do that and then we'll go after the spirit…or maybe just me. I'll see what President Suzuki says. Just…just wait for me to see what he says." Said Matsuo. He hoped to whatever God was listening that President Suzuki let him work alone, or at least with someone else. Someone who hadn't slept with Shigeko. Someone who was normal…or at least closer to normal than those two.
Literally anyone else.
Why had the President even assigned them both to working on this case? Shimazaki had a good sense for people and spirits but Joseph wasn't going to be much help against Shimazaki or the spirit. This whole thing was suspicious…but it wasn't his place to go poking around. The President hated people who went poking around into things like this, he liked it when people just did what they were told, and he hated being questioned…even when Matsuo had a good reason to ask the questions he wanted to ask.
Why him?
Did the President think that he….? No, no way. Matsuo wasn't like that! Did he just assume that every guy who spent time with Shigeo was after her? But he hardly even spent time with her. He didn't even want to. She was…in a lot of ways she was terrifying…he was just there for Toshiki. He had barely even seen Toshiki, it felt like, since they were always with her…maybe it was Shigeko that wanted him out of the way? Then she would have had her friend to herself…no, that didn't mesh with what Matsuo knew about her…but then what could it be? Why had the President assigned two guys who had slept with Shigeko to working with him?
What he had he done to deserve this?
Maybe this was punishment for taking this long on one mission. It wasn't as though he'd had a choice. This thing killed and ate a few people and then went dormant. It moved around, too, not like a usual haunting. It was a possessor, not a haunter, and that…he hadn't had as much experience with them. This thing moved around and so did he. How many times had he been called back to the Seventh Division to deal with some bullshit? How many other spirits had he had to acquire? If the President wanted him on this full time then he needed to just let Matsuo work full time on this or…or at least…he at least could have gotten Matsuo some actual help! Not these two…not this….not that complaining would do any good in this situation.
You didn't get to pick your coworkers, you just had to finish the mission and pray that you never saw them again…so that was why Matsuo was going to do. Finish the damn mission and then never speak to either of these people again for the rest of his life and afterlife, too, if he could manage it.