Serizawa hadn't fully thought this through.

He cared about Miss Suzuki and wanted to keep her safe just like she cared about him and wanted to keep him safe, that was why he had pretty much insisted that he come with her, but he just…hadn't thought what coming with her would be like.

How much traveling they'd have to do.

How many strange people they'd be around.

Just how big the world could be.

There was a part of him that thought he was being really silly, of course the world was a big place. He had travelled all over it after all. By plane. It was easier travelling by plane than by train. The planes they took were always small, just enough room for him and his friends, and the only strangers around were the pilots. He had never even seen one of them. They always stayed in their own place away from the group. Here on the train it felt like he couldn't breathe, like there were too many people and not enough air to go around, like he needed to get out before he just-

A hand was over his.

"Serizawa? Are you ok?" asked Mob, taking his hand in hers. She didn't know how to read minds but she definitely knew how to read auras and his, right then, had been about to freak out. Like he had been about to explode or something.

That was the last thing that she needed right now.

"I-I'm fine, Miss Suzuki. How are you?" asked Serizawa, swallowing down all of his fear and nervousness as best as he could.

"I'm fine too…I think." Said Mob

"You think? I mean…um…I mean you can think whatever you want, Miss Suzuki, but I just mean that you're always so sure about things and-" said Serizawa

"I mean I think that…that I have to be fine right now. If I'm not fine then I'll be like you…I mean I might lose control and then you'll lose control and then that would be really bad…that's all." Said Mob as she looked around the train car. There were people here, not very many, but enough that if something happened they could get really hurt.

She was tired of hurting people.

She was sick and tired of hurting people and letting them get hurt. She was never going to lose control again, not like at the Seventh Division. She had to be calm right now. conceal, don't feel. Like Elsa before she learned to embrace her powers and love who she was. Mob wished that she could have been more like Elsa. Elsa only had ice powers, and she only hurt her little sister once on accident. Mob had hurt a lot of people on accident…and now she had to hurt one on purpose.

That is if spirits still counted as people. She wasn't entirely sure, not having spent a lot of time around them.

"You don't have to be fine, you don't have to be anything! I mean…I just mean that you can feel however you want to feel." Said Serizawa. He had no reason to be afraid. She was the one who had every reason to be afraid right now, not him. It was her friend that was in danger, it was her who was going to have to fight that spirit….the spirit that even the others had been afraid of…

Miss Suzuki was going off to fight it herself, essentially. She didn't need him messing this up for her.

"I think…I think that I want to be fine." Said Mob

"Um…ok. I think that, um, that I want to be fine too." Said Serizawa. She nodded and let go of his hand. It felt cold, then, in that moment but he didn't say anything. She had enough to deal with as it was.

"That's good. Then let's both just…let's both just be fine." Said Mob. She felt like Dad, maybe. One time he had told her that he always had to be ok because if he wasn't then everything would fall apart. Claw, their family, even the whole world. Sometimes Mob felt that way too, like if she wasn't ok then nothing would be ok…so she had to be ok.

She had this.

She had to have this. She had to win this fight. She had to do what her friends hadn't been able to. She knew what she had promised, or said that she would promise, that she wouldn't go after this thing…but she had to. She had no choice. This had gone on long enough and she was probably the only one strong enough to stop this thing.

Well…mostly.

Dad could have stopped the spirit, maybe, if he hadn't been so busy being with Shiori…who Mob kind of had to think was at least alright now. She had been kidnapped after all and Mob wasn't so mean that she would dislike someone who had been through that. Even if she had taken Dad away from their family and even if she was probably going to have a baby who Dad was going to like the best out of everyone in their family and then Mukai would be as sad as she was and Sho would be…she had no idea how Sho would be. He said that he hated Dad but Mob had on idea how someone could hate their own Dad like that. Of course Dad had been meaner to Sho than he had ever been to Mob…

But he was still their Dad.

At least he had stuck around. Mom had run away, just decided that she was done being their mom, and left Mob to take over where she had left off. Mob would never do that to her kids if she had them…not that she knew who she was going to have them with. Not Shimazaki, they were broken up and even if they hadn't been it would still have been weird, and not Teru either. They were long broken up if they had ever been together in the first place. She wasn't looking forward to seeing him at all. She wondered if there was some way that she could avoid him…of course these were not the things to worry about when she was about to face off against a spirit so dangerous that not even the best mediums and espers in all of Claw had been able to take it down.

Unlike Dad she had to keep her priorities in order.

But like him she kept her feelings all stuffed down inside of herself. She had to. It was a long train ride to the little town where Minori was hiding, all the way out in the countryside. So far away that her phone had said it was kilometers and kilometers from the train station. She wished that she could have taken a care but then everyone would have known where she had gone to. That is if Fukuda hadn't told them already, though of course nobody would believe him if he did say something. That was what happened when nobody liked you…a mean thought to have but also an accurate one. He was always so mean to her…but then again he had been nice enough to tell her where to find Minori and the spirit…

So maybe things were getting better between them.

Mob leaned to the side so her head was pressed against Serizawa's arm. His aura hummed beside her, kind of like a static electricity ball. It was nice, comfortable even. She let her aura meet his. He stiffened before relaxing. For a moment she had thought that he would explode, or at least get upset, but he didn't. He just let her use him as a pillow. He was really nice like that, he was nice in a lot of ways, actually. He was nice and sweet and he cared about her and he would always be there. That was what you did for a friend, you were always there for them no matter. For family, too, and other people you cared about.

It was important to be there for the people you cared about.

Her phone vibrated in her hand. Another picture…no, this wasn't Instagram. This was a message. Sho wanted to know when she was coming home and to tell her that Mukai might have been saying that they were having cooked hamsters for dinner but it was really going to be pizza. Or at least it better have been pizza. Mob's thumb hovered over the keyboard. Sho didn't know where she was…maybe she needed to keep it that way…

The last thing she wanted was for her little brother to end up involved in this.

'Pizza is fine. I love you and Mukai.' Mob replied. She did love him, she really did, and that was why he couldn't know about this. Fukuda loved him too and she knew that she could trust him not to let Sho come and try to help her, that is if he told Sho. He probably didn't. That was good. She didn't care if Dad had that other baby he had been wanting with Shiori, she would always love her little brother, and the last thing that she wanted was to lose him.

She wasn't going to be losing anyone today.

"A-Are you alright, Miss Suzuki?" asked Serizawa as he felt her shift. She shifted to look up at him.

"You asked me that already." Said Mob

"I-I did! I mean I did, and I'm sorry, I just saw you moving and your aura was-" said Serizawa

"I'm still fine. Sho just wanted me to know that we're having pizza and not cooked hamsters for dinner." Said Mob

"Cooked…hamsters?" asked Serizawa. He couldn't help it, he made a face. He knew that it was weird to make faces, and rude to be grossed out about food, but he couldn't help it. You weren't supposed to eat hamsters…well that is unless you were starving or something…but they weren't starving. Were they? They had plenty of food and…and he didn't even know that he had to worry about starving…but maybe he should have. Maybe there were things in this world that he had to worry about that he hadn't even known about…maybe even-

"Mukai thinks that we're cooking them but I don't know why. Maybe that's why she set them free…it's hard to understand her sometimes." Said Mob

"She talks a lot better than she did before, I mean not that she was bad at talking because, you know, she was little. I just meant that it's easier to understand what she…says." Said Serizawa feeling like a complete and total idiot. She was smiling at him, though, so maybe she understood him. Maybe she didn't think that he was…of course she didn't think anything like that about him. She was Miss Suzuki.

She was his friend and friends didn't think of their friends like that.

"I meant that it's hard to understand the things that she does." Said Mob

"Like why she would want to cook hamsters or think that we would…I mean if we were starving then we could eat them but we're not…right?" asked Serizawa

"We're not starving and even if we would I'd rather you guys ate me than the hamsters. Sho loves those hamsters." Said Mob softly so she didn't upset him. He was in the edge of being upset, she could tell. Part of her wanted to tell him that he worried too much, but she didn't, she wasn't going to talk to her friend like that…or someone she wanted to be more than friends with…

Feelings were complicated sometimes.

Maybe Minori could help her get her feelings sorted out, once she saved her, of course. That is if they were even going to go back to being friends after that. Mob kind of hoped that they would. Sure they'd had a fight and Minori had called her a b-word…and Minori could be kind of a b-word…but they had been friends for years and that meant something. The only other friend Mob had ever had, that was her own age, was Sho and he was her brother. There was also Teru…but she didn't like to think about or talk about or even exist in the same world as Teru. Boys…they were so complicated…but having a friend who was a girl was also complicated…that is if she and Minori were still friends or going to go back to being friends…

Was that selfish, to want to be friends with someone who may not have even liked her anymore? Was she even trying to save Minori? Or was she just trying to save their friendship, as difficult as it had been at times…

"But then you'd be eaten…" said Serizawa. The thought was horrible, so horrible that it took everything inside of him not to lose control and derail the train car. Her aura settled over his, wrapped around him like a blanket.

"Yes, but then the rest of you would end up surviving, and that's what I want most of all. My friends to be safe and alive and stuff." Said Mob

"But then…I don't think that I could do that Miss Suzuki, I'm sorry." Said Serizawa

"That's ok, I don't think that's ever going to happen…and anyway Minegishi can make food grow and so can I but they're better at it than I am. I don't know. We discussed this a bunch of times in the past and Dad says that we're never going to have to think about this kind of stuff." Said Mob

"That's good, that the President said that, I mean. He's so smart and nice and-" said Serizawa

"My Dad isn't nice." Said Mob softly. He really wasn't. If Dad had been nice then she could have asked him for help with this and then he would have helped her and she wouldn't have been so…so alone. Even next to Serizawa she felt alone. She didn't know why. There were people everywhere. It felt cold, though, and empty. Like going to a museum with nobody else inside. She wanted help, to be with her friends, and her family…to have everyone come together and face this thing and then defeat it and…and other stuff like that.

But that wasn't the way that it was going to be and she no choice but to be ok with that.

"I…um…" said Serizawa. He didn't know what to say to that. The President wasn't always nice, that was true, but he was still nice enough to have started Claw, to have created a place that brought all of the people in the world like them together. A place to give them second chances. To give him a second chance. Miss Suzuki may have been the one to save him but if not for the President then he never would have met her. He knew some of what his friends had been through, what their lives had been like, and he sometimes even felt like they'd had it worse than him….not that he would ever say anything like that to their faces…

And not that he would ever contradict Miss Suzuki to her face, either.

"But he can be, sometimes, just not now…or at least not to me." said Mob

"I…" said Serizawa

"But that's…Dad. He's always been kind of mean and weird and stuff. I don't need him right now, anyway. I can handle this." Said Mob. Dad had said that she was an adult now and this was what adults did, they handled things. She was going to handle this and then she was going to go home and handle things at home and then she was going to handle things in Claw and then she was going to handle whatever else needed to be handled. She was the one in charge, here, and…and she wasn't a kid anymore.

She was one her own, mostly, and that was fine.

"I…I never thought that you couldn't! I mean I never doubted you, Miss Suzuki, I could never doubt you." said Serizawa. She nodded and went back to using him as a pillow. He must have said the right thing. That was good. He was still so bad at knowing what to say….if he couldn't even figure out how to talk to her then how was he supposed to keep her safe?!

He was going to have to figure it out.

"Thank you." said Mob. Serizawa didn't doubt her…so why did it feel like she was doubting herself. She could do this. She had no choice. Someone had to and that someone was, obviously, going to have to be her. If she didn't have this then it just wasn't had…that was just how it went. Even if it felt like there was something heavy hanging over her, on her, all the time. Even if it felt like, sometimes, she just wanted to…to…

Her stop was coming up.

The train ride had gone faster than she had thought it would. She would have to get off soon, at her stop, and not the one after it…or the one after that…or the one after that. She wasn't Mom. She wasn't going to leave. She wasn't Dad either, she had her priorities in order. She had to do what she had to do. That was how her life had gone up to this point and that was how her life was going to keep going. She was Suzuki Shigeko, she was Mob, she was a good friend and a good sister and a good person and this was what good people did. They helped their friends, and former friends, whenever they needed it…even if it meant going it nearly alone…

She took Serizawa's hand in hers. She knew that she was going to end up having to protect him, most likely, instead of the other way around…and that was ok. That was what friends were for.