Sometimes you had to let go of your feelings.
Dad had always said so. It was important to exorcise your emotions or else you could have lost control and hurt people, and yourself. Conceal don't feel. That was an easier way of saying it. Exorcising her emotions just seemed like such a mean way of putting it…if mean made sense. Like she was banishing her feelings forever.
She didn't want to get rid of her feelings forever, no, just for right now.
"What the f-word…." Muttered Mob as she took in the scene in front of her. It was like something out of one of those movies Sho watched. Some kind of disaster movie or maybe…maybe a horror movie. She certainly felt…she didn't need to feel scared…but it was just so hard not to. There was something in the aura, some kind of aura hovering there, something that made it feel like…like something was watching her…
She took a deep breath. Conceal, don't feel.
"Miss Suzuki?" asked Serizawa. He opened his umbrella and held it over her head. She was being still now, very still, and he didn't blame her. This was like something out of a videogame, a city destroyer. He half expected a kaiju to pop out. Of course he knew that he was being ridiculous…but sometimes it was just easier to be ridiculous.
Videogames were a lot easier than real life, of course.
"Serizawa!" gasped Mob as she used her powers to close his umbrella. Right. He was here and she had to think about him. If this was almost too much for her then it must have been a lot worse for him!
"Miss Suzuki, I-" said Serizawa
"Serizawa, don't look." Said Mob. She used her powers to turn his head downwards towards the ground. He didn't need to see this. He didn't need to see the big chunk missing out of what looked like a very nice house. He didn't need to see the hurt people limping away. He didn't need to see how many people were dragging unconscious people…at least she hoped that they were unconscious…
People's auras went out when they died, didn't they?
"Really, don't look. You…you don't want to look." Said Mob
"I-I'm not looking, Miss Suzuki." Said Serizawa as he closed his eyes and clutched his umbrella in his hands. Lying was wrong, especially towards his friend, but maybe it was best in this case. He didn't think that he should have told her that he'd seen it already. All the hurt people and the destruction. It made him feel…it didn't matter what he felt like right now. She mattered. She had her feelings and he needed to make room for them. He could see his aura growing…he needed to calm down.
It was hard.
There was a hand on top of his. A small hand. Her hand. He didn't know who else's hand it could have possibly been. There was just Miss Suzuki, always Miss Suzuki. She was his best friend and he knew that she would always be there for him…and he also knew that he had to be there for her. She was so brave, so much braver than him, but maybe that wasn't saying much considering that he was…himself.
He had to be strong, stronger, stronger for her. That was why he had come along after all.
"Good. This…I think that this is…" said Mob
"Horrible?" asked Serizawa
"No, I mean yes, but also no, that's not what I was thinking. I was just thinking that this might be something that I need to do-" said Mob
"You-you don't have to! I mean I know that you think you do but-" said Serizawa
"-alone." Said Mob. The word was heavy between them, so heavy that Serizawa didn't even lift his head. He just reached over and took his hand in hers. His aura touched hers. It felt sort of like drinking a whole cup of coffee in one go. Her heart was beating faster and she could feel a sort of restlessness settling into her stomach. She didn't know if it was love or the fact that she kind of absorbed some of his energy…she hadn't meant to do that…
She was losing control. She needed to stop.
"You don't have to do it alone. I-I'm here, I'm here for you, Miss Suzuki. I'll always be here for you." said Serizawa as he took her hand in his. She felt sort of cold, clammy, and just generally…weird. Draining maybe, like sitting in a cold bath. Like when you sat for too long in the bath and you knew that you needed to get up, since you had been there for a while, but you're also stuck just like you would have been if it had been a glue bath instead of a water bath. He let his eyes rise upwards. The path into the house was even more daunting than the path out of his old bathroom. He knew that he needed to walk it. There was no topping the tub off with hot water and there was no trying to get used to it. He had to move forward.
He had to do it for her.
"You can be here for me being 'here'." Said Mob pointing to the spot they stood at.
"I…I'm going with you. That's why I came in the first place." Said Serizawa trying to sound like he meant it. He did, he meant it more than he had meant anything in the whole world, but his voice came out in something close to a whine. He wished he sounded better, stronger, more like someone in control. Like the President, or even Sho. Someone who was sure of himself.
Because that was what he was, sure of himself.
"I shouldn't have let you come with. If something happened to you-" said Mob
"I don't care what happens to me." said Serizawa. That time his eyes did rise. They met hers. There was something in her eyes, some kind of look on her face, and something dancing in her aura that he had never seen before. He didn't know what to make of it but he knew better than to ask. This was probably one of those things he was just supposed to know about. People were so complicated.
Even his best friend.
"But I do." Said Mob softly. She didn't want this, she didn't want him to not care about himself. Why couldn't he have seen himself the way that she saw him? Why couldn't he…it was hard. This whole thing was hard. If she couldn't save him then how was she supposed to save Minori? She could feel…it. That thing. That big, mounting, gross, terrifying thing. It was in there, in what was left of the house, and she knew that Minori was still being controlled by it. She had to save her…and she had to save Serizawa…but she had to save herself too…
No. She didn't.
"Then let's…let's care…together." Said Serizawa. He hadn't whined, so there was that. The whole thing had sounded a lot better in his head. She probably thought that he was such an idiot and-
"Yeah….yes. Let's go in together. I can save…I've got this." Said Mob. She was Suzuki Shigeko. She had this. She was the second most powerful esper in the world. She had this. She could exorcise a spirit…a spirit that Dad had been throwing people at for weeks and months now…but she wasn't most people. She was Suzuki Shigeko. She was powerful. She had been told, she had known, for her entire life that she was a powerful esper…
She was second only to Dad and Dad…this would have been easy for him.
Dad wouldn't have stood there scared. No, he would have walked right in and done what had to be done. Even if his best friend was in there. Even if Fukuda was in there, or Hatori, she couldn't remember which one he liked better right now. Probably Hatori. She would have gone in for Hatori, too, and even Fukuda even though he had turned into a big, f-wording, jerk over the years. Yes, that made it easier. Imagining that someone she knew was in the house, someone close to her…
What did that say about her as a person?
Minori was her friend. She had never been very nice to Mob, but then again Minori just wasn't a very nice person in general. She was mean to all of her friends…she had called Mob a b-word though…but she called all of her friends names. The party had been…it didn't matter. She had come running to save Minori because they were friends and also because it was the right thing to do. It shouldn't have mattered who was in the house, who was being possessed, and it didn't.
She was Suzuki Shigeko. She was Mob. This was what she did, the right thing. Always the right thing.
She led Serizawa by the hand up the stairs and into the house. The stone was cracked and broken. There was splashes of red…she walked faster. That didn't mean that anyone was dead. People had lots of blood, right? If people had died then there would have been more spirits hanging around. She wasn't too late. She hadn't…she hadn't waited too long. She was right where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there. She used her powers to clear away some broken pieces of door and wall. It wasn't…it wasn't so bad. The house was just a little bit broken, that was all. The people inside were just a little hurt, that was all….
She wasn't too late.
She held Serizawa's hand tighter. She wasn't scared. She was…she had this. She had to save the hurt people. Something crunched under her shoes as she walked deeper into the house. She looked down…broken glass. She held out her hand and immediately picked it all up. She looked around…of course there was no garbage can around here. A part of her was worried for Mukai, that she would hurt herself here, even though it made no sense. She was at home where she belonged. She was at home where Mob be-where she was going to head back to when all of this was over. When she cleaned this mess up. The mess that she had let get made.
If she had been there, if she had still been friends with Minori, then none of this would have happened.
"Are you…are you alright?" asked Serizawa. They had stopped moving. She was holding up a big pile of broken glass and staring off into the distance. He tried to see what she was looking at. Maybe the glass. It was almost like snow dancing in the air. Or maybe ice crystals. Maybes he was thinking about Frozen. Maybe she wanted them to watch Frozen again. He was so bored of that movie but if watching it meant that they went back home where they belonged then…no, he couldn't think like that now.
He was here for her and he would be for as long as she needed him.
"Fine." Said Mob
"Then why are playing with he glass? I mean you can if you want to-" said Serizawa
"I'm not playing, I was just…cleaning up, I guess." said Mob. She crushed the glass together until it was a powder…wait, no, that wasn't good. She just made it easier for the pieces to get under people's skin. She just kept on messing up, didn't she? She just had to…she had to do something right. She closed here eyes and took a deep breath. Power was nothing without control, like Dad had always said. She had to figure out how she was going to fix this, all of this. She took as many of her feelings out as she could. She took the pieces of glass and put them together, she didn't know what they had been of course, but she made something that she thought would be alright.
A snowflake.
She sang the song in her head, the let it go part. She just had to let it go…but also keep control. The song in her mind turned into the words 'let it go' and conceal don't feel' playing in her head over and over again. Conceal her feelings, don't feel them, but also let it go. The fears that once controlled her couldn't get to her at all, not here. The fears…there were so many…but she had to focus on what she was doing. She took a step forward. Then another. Then another. She could see, sort of, where she was going. She could see it in her mind's eyes. She saw what was happening. The walls putting themselves back together. The wall paper sticking back to the walls. The tables and pictures and wooden things nailing themselves back together and going back to where it seemed like they would have gone. Cleaning…she knew how to clean. She had been cleaning her house, cleaning up after her family, for almost as long as she could remember.
This was something that she could do.
Her steps picked up. Soon she went from creeping forwards to taking actual strides. Eventually she opened her eyes. It was still dark in there but she didn't need the light, she knew where she was going. Cleaning up the hallway seemed to have cleared a path right to the spirit…right to Minori. She hadn't mean to do that, she just didn't like when things were dirty, but it was…it was a good thing. She could do this. She would do this.
She could save Minori.
She head footsteps. For a moment she was filled with hope that Minori had broken free and was running away…but no, that wasn't Minori. Minori didn't have an aura, for one thing, she was a normal person. The person running towards her was an esper. Serizawa held out a hand in front of her and opened up his umbrella.
He was trying to keep her safe.
"Someone's coming." Said Serizawa. She didn't need him. She was stronger than him and her control was better. He wasn't stupid, at least not very stupid, he knew that she could hold her own against another esper…but he still felt like he needed to protect her. That he needed to keep her safe from the stranger approaching them. Maybe because she was a girl, or because she was so small, or because he knew that if something happened and he lost her he wouldn't be able to pick his pieces up and he'd wind up as shattered as the glass she had just cleaned up.
She may not have needed him but she had him there with her and he wasn't going to let anything happen to her. Not now, not ever.
"I know." said Mob
"Let me protect you." said Serizawa
"I don't think that you need to. They…he, it's a boy. I mean it looks like a boy…and it doesn't look like he wants to hurt anyone." Said Mob
"How-How can you tell?" asked Serizawa, not putting his umbrella down.
"His aura. It feels…scared." Said Mob. She used her powers to close Serizawa's umbrella. She pushed his arm back at his side where it belonged. It wouldn't have been good if they scared this boy. He got closer…oh. He was her age, or at least her height. Maybe he was just short. She could see someone hovering behind him…he was hovering someone. He might have just been short, in that case, since the only kids powerful enough to lift something as heavy as a person were her and Sho since they came from Dad.
Anyone else would have been recruited a while ago.
The boy was running towards her now. She stopped. She didn't know him but she wanted to. The closer he got the more she felt like…like she needed to know him. Not like how it felt when she saw a boy she kind of liked, it was nothing like that, it was deeper and completely different. Light streamed in from the holes in the ceiling, not a lot of it, but enough for her to get a good look at him as he got closer. She could see…something. Something about him…
Had they met before?
"Um…excuse me? Are you…do I know-" said Mob as the boy got closer. She had seen him before, she must have. She didn't know his aura but…but she must have met him before. Maybe he was Claw affiliated. Maybe he had been at a Claw function or something. Maybe his Dad was one of Claw's donors or…something. Yes, she must have met him at a function or something…
But she would have remembered his aura and not…not whatever it was that she remembered about him…something about the color yellow and…and white….water? Water and…and fear….
"Hey! You need to get….out….of…." panted Ritsu as he ran up to the shadows that had been going TOWARDS the evil spirit like a couple of morons. What, had they missed their train? They were actual espers, that was the first thing he had noticed, and if he had been a little less panicked he would have tried to get them on his side against Claw…
Claw wasn't welcome here.
That was what had been on the invitation right there in plain black and white. This was an event for the independent psychic community. If something had happened, if this had been a trap or something, he knew that he and Teru could have taken whoever Claw threw at them. The heavy hitters were all in Tokyo, according to all the psychic forums, and…and he hadn't been afraid. No, the spirit had pretty much taken care of that. These obviously weren't friends but he hadn't been expecting foes…
Like Reigen would have said if he hadn't been knocked out. Always expect the unexpected.
"Are you alright? Do you need-" said Mob as she took a step forward. Serizawa reached out and once again held his umbrella out in front of him.
"Miss Suzuki, be careful. You don't know him…them." said Serizawa. That was a rule, wasn't it? Don't talk to strangers? Of course that rule had never made much sense. As a kid he had always wondered how people made friends, in that case, if they never talked to strangers since everyone was a stranger until you got to know them. Not that he had been eager to get to know people, strangers, when he had been a kid. Even less so now that he was an adult.
He had been in Claw long enough to know that anyone could be a threat, even if they didn't look it.
"Suzuki? Wait…are you….no….no!" said Ritsu as he put up a barrier. He nearly dropped Reigen. He had to just…he had to keep control and…and he had to multitask! He knew that he could do this. He could hold his own…he couldn't just…he could…he could….maybe she was a different Suzuki…
She probably wasn't.
"Don't be scared! I mean I know that this is really scary but I can stop-" said Mob, pushing Serizawa's umbrella away from her. He was probably scaring the boy even worse than he had been scared already. This was all just so much, a lot for her, and for him…she got the feeling that she needed to keep him safe. She had that feeling about everyone she cared about, all of her friends, and that was why this was weird. She didn't even know him but something somewhere inside of her was telling her that she needed to keep this boy safe…that she needed to protect him in every way that she could…he was so little…
He was as tall as she was. He wasn't little. But he also kind of was…somehow.
"Stop it! Just…just…just stop it!" shouted Ritsu as he put up his barrier. This was bad. This was worse than bad. This was the worst thing that could have happened. This was…he was going to…no! Nothing was going to happen. He kept Reigen steady as he could. He knew how to do two things at once. He just…he needed to focus.
He had this. He had no choice.
"I'm not doing-" said Mob as the boy put up a barrier. She didn't know why he did it. She knew that she could have protected him and he should have known it too. He was just so little…like Sho. She almost felt like it was Sho in front of her now even though this boy looked and acted nothing like him. This boy…there was something so familiar about him…something so just…so just…
They had the same eyes.
"Stay back! I'm not joining you so-so-so just stay there and let me go!" shouted Ritsu
"I wasn't going to ask you to-" said Mob. This wasn't the time to be recruiting people, even Dad would have known that if he had been there.
"Just leave me alone!" shouted Ritsu before he threw everything he had at her. Nothing happened. Two barriers, hers and the guy she was withs, went up and…and that was everything he'd had! This was…he wasn't an idiot. He wasn't Teru. He knew that she was a threat. He hadn't ever met her before but he knew that she was a threat and…and had he underestimated her or overestimated himself or…or…or…
He had to get out of here.
Sometimes you had to run away. If Reigen had been awake then he would have told Ritsu something to that effect. Sometimes you had to run away and this was one of those times. He was leaving Teru behind…something hurt inside of his chest at the thought of it…but he had to go! He had to at least save himself, and Reigen, before he wound up captured by Sho's sister. The last thing he needed, wanted, was to wind up in another Claw cell waiting to be brainwashed…at least then he would have been able to see Sho again…
Somehow it wasn't worth it.
"Wait! Don't…go…" said Mob as the boy ran away, which was kind of the smart thing to do given what was going on. There was a big, terrifying spirit waiting to probably hurt if not kill everyone. Of course he needed to run away and…and she would have wanted Sho to do the same thing if he had been there. It felt like he'd been there. There was just something so…so Sho feeling about that boy. That boy who had the same eyes as her…though she looked exactly like everyone else. Lots of people had brown eyes. It was Japan after all. There was nothing about that boy that…that made her want to run after him…that should have made her want to run after him…
She couldn't afford to get distracted. Not now. Not when the stakes were this high.
"Should we follow him? I mean it's dangerous for someone so small to be here…" said Serizawa. It was incredibly dangerous here. He had known that for a fact for a while now but seeing that boy made the whole thing seem more real. Maybe it was because he looked so much like Miss Suzuki…he had to keep her safe. If something happened to her then he had no idea what he would have done. He had been so resolved, before, that he would keep her safe…
But now it felt like all of that resolve just vanished. Gone. Leaving him with nothing but fear.
"We need to keep going. I mean I want to follow him but…but we need to keep going." Said Mob
"Are you sure? I mean maybe someone could help us or…um…" said Serizawa
"No. The only person stronger than me is my Dad and I don't want his help. I don't need it. I can do this myself. Minori is my friend and…and I have to save her." said Mob
"Al-Alright, Miss Suzuki." Said Serizawa. What else could he say? He had to be strong for her. He had to be there for her, he had to take care of her, he had to be a good friend to her…so that was what he was doing right now. He followed her down the hallway. With each step he took it seemed to get longer and shorter at the same time. He wished he had a map, right there in the corner, where he could at least see what was coming. Like he was in a dungeon crawler…
Yes. That he understood.
This was like an escort mission in an RPG. He was escorting her to…or maybe this was more like a boss battle. Like an escort mission to a boss battle. Or maybe it was like an MMO. He had never been good at those, talking to people was hard online too. Hatori was really so much better at these kind, at those kind, of games than he was. He almost wished Hatori had been there. Almost. Hatori's powers would have been useless in this kind of fight so, really, if he had been there then he would have just been another person for Serizawa to worry about.
He wished, though, that his other friends had been there.
President Suzuki would have been able to beat this spirit with his eyes closed. He was like the sort of player who spent all day grinding before he even tried for the dungeon boss, which was kind of weird since he really only liked retro games. Fukuda would have been useful too, it was always important to have a healer in your party, even though Miss Suzuki didn't like him at all. Minegishi would have been good, too, since Miss Suzuki like them best and also they were a really good fighter…or maybe wizard would be a better class for them since they could control plants? Or maybe wizard would apply to all of them since they all had psychic powers.
It would have been kind of an unbalanced party if everyone had been there.
They could have used more fighters, like Shibata and Tsuchiya, or even a thief like Shimazaki…or maybe he would have counted as more of a rouge? Hatori would have known, he loved MMOs. He still wished Hatori had been there even though his powers would have been useless. He wished that someone, anyone, else had been there to help protect Miss Suzuki. He wanted, he wished, with everything inside of himself he wished that he had the strength and bravery to keep her safe but he knew that he didn't. He knew that he had to try but with every step he took it got harder and harder to be brave for her. His aura was showing, his heart was pounding in his chest, and every step he took felt like he was wading through quicksand. He needed…he needed to be brave…
He could see the spirit. It was too late to turn back now.
"Minori…" whispered Mob as she finally saw her friend. This was…this was bad. Minori would have hated the way she looked now. She was all just…not herself. She always worked so hard to look nice, doing your makeup right and dressing well were the most important things in the world to her, and now she just looked…not even like herself. She was in red pajamas…no, bloody pajamas. Her hair was all greasy and messed up. She was pale, paler than even Mob was, and her eyes had dark circles under them. Big ones, like Minegishi got when they missed their naps. Minori's eyes didn't just have dark circles under them, no, they also looked…wrong.
Those weren't Minori's eyes.
"What…what is that thing?" asked Serizawa quietly. He didn't move. He didn't want it to do…whatever it was it was planning on doing. That wasn't a person, well it was, it was also just…not. A spirit. He'd seen spirits before, he'd been able to see spirits for his entire life, but never anything like this. This was like a boss fight, a final boss fight, or maybe an unfair final boss fight. Like the final fight in Sonic Advance 2 which was every single boss fight and then an ultimate boss fight at the end…
But Serizawa had never been in any kind of a boss fight before.
"My friend." Said Mob as she took a step forward. Serizawa tried to stop her but she stopped him first. This was just something that she had to do. The spirit looked up from what it was doing. There was someone on the ground in front of her…it. It was an it. Minori was a her but that spirit was not Minori. It was bad. It was evil. She had to get rid of it before it could hurt someone else.
It had already hurt so many people.
It was looking right at her now….right through her. She could feel it looking through her skin, into her aura, into who she was. It's eyes met hers. The person on the ground started to move…oh. That was Teru, or at least someone who looked a lot like him. She hoped that it was just someone who looked a lot like him…and she hoped that it wasn't Teru…
She really, truly, hoped that it wasn't Teru.
Because she never wanted to see him again, she was selfish like that. She was probably the most selfish person who ever lived. There Teru was, probably about to die, and here she was praying that he didn't wake up or notice her. She prayed that he didn't want to look at her or talk to her or…or anything. She just wanted it all to go away, everything that happened between them, and that made her even more selfish than she had ever been. Doing what they had done was just…it didn't matter right now! It didn't matter but all she could think about, picture, and remember was just…just….
How selfish could she possibly be?
She had always been selfish, ever since she had been born. If she had been less selfish then maybe she would have been a better daughter and taken better care of Mom and then Mom wouldn't have wanted to run away from home and then they could have been a family. But no, she had just been a selfish and dumb kid and then Mom left. There must have been signs, people didn't just run away from home for no reason, but Mob had been too busy playing with her toys and watching Frozen and stuff like that to pay attention to her own Mom. Mom had left and then they had been alone with Dad and she had been too busy with her own life to take care of Sho and then Dad had been so mean to him and…and…and…
She should have been better for Sho.
Even now she had left him at home all alone. Well, their friends were there with him but friends weren't big sisters. Her job was to take care of him, and Mukai, but mostly him since Mukai had a mom and Sho didn't really have anyone. Dad didn't like him and their Mom was gone. Dad needed her too. If she had taken better care of him then maybe he would have been a nicer person instead of the jerk he was now. Maybe he and Sho would have even gotten along better and then they could have been one big, happy, family like she had always wanted…
It would have been wonderful.
A happy family. A family where they loved each other and never fought. A family where their Dad loved them both and never hit them. A family where Dad never said things like…like how he was done with her and he didn't like her anymore and he hated the person that she was becoming. She didn't know what it was like, exactly, to have a Dad like that but…but it must have been nice. To have a Dad like everyone else had, and maybe a Mom too, and maybe even Mukai could be their whole sister instead of their half sister and…and maybe they could have lived in their old house and she could have…she could have done all the things that she didn't do…
She could have had friends or maybe gone to school or…or other things that people her age did…
Because she just…maybe she wanted that life. Maybe she wanted to be normal. Maybe in her selfishness she had always been trying to live the normal life that, of course, she was never going to get. She was Suzuki Shigeko and this was who she was. She was an esper, a powerful one, and…and she had to be like Dad even though she would never succeed him. She was as powerful as he was but she was a girl and she knew that girls couldn't inherit because they joined their husband's families and…and she didn't know if she would ever get married but that didn't matter and even questioning Dad about this made her selfish and…and she was just the most selfish person in the world, wasn't she?
She wanted to just…just not be…not be herself…
But she was herself. She hated being herself. She felt so cold. She felt so…so dizzy. She didn't know what she felt. She just knew that in the whole of her being she was selfish. She was so selfish and everyone would have been better off without her. She felt herself being tugged and shaken. She heard a voice, a far away voice, like she was beginning to sink underwater. Like the time when she had been really little and Mom had taken them to the pool. Like the time Sho had tried swimming to the deep end and she had tried swimming after him and they both went under and Mom had pulled Sho out first. The world looked like it was underwater, too, like how she had looked up at Mom through the water and everything had been moving so slow and she had been so cold and so lost and so…so…
Stuck.
She was stuck and then she wasn't. There was purple all around her, purple above her head, like water. She reached out with her aura and her hands, they were one and the same now. It was like she was her aura even though that made no sense. She didn't know where her aura ended and she began. She felt it going outwards, past her body. Her body was cold. She reached out and grabbed as much as she could of the purple.
She fell.
She was caught.
She was back.
"Miss Suzuki! Miss Suzuki! Speak to me!" shouted Serizawa as he shook her. She had just been standing there, her aura getting brighter and brighter, until she fell to the ground. Maybe he had shaken her too hard, or maybe not hard enough, or maybe it had nothing at all to do with him. He didn't know!
He had no idea.
He had no idea what he was supposed to do in this situation or just…just how he had even gotten into this situation in the first place. This wasn't where he belonged. He didn't just mean their room or this house. No, he didn't belong in the world. He didn't belong out here with other people, especially not someone like her, not someone as perfect and wonderful as Miss Suzuki.
She deserved so much better than what he could have been.
He wasn't anything. Not even a person. No, Serizawa Katsuya had gone into his room one day and vanished. People, real people, lived out in the world. The had jobs and went to school and made friends and just…they didn't spend years and years in their rooms. They didn't burden others. They didn't act like…like he didn't even know. He didn't even have words for what he was, what he had been to Mom, to the world.
A ghost.
A burdensome ghost to mom and just a normal ghost to the rest of the world. He didn't exist. It was amazing that Miss Suzuki even looked at him. Even spoke to him. Even wanted top be near him. It was amazing that he had any friends at all…if they were even his friends to begin with. They were really more Miss Suzuki's friends. She probably made them be friends with him. She had probably just asked them to be nice to him. He didn't deserve it. Not with how selfish he was. Not with the way that he had just…not with the way that he had just lived his life.
Maybe it would have been better if he had just disappeared.
He felt his legs getting weak. Miss Suzuki was still in his arms. If he fell on her then he could have hurt her, crushed her, maybe even killed her. She was just so small and…and she needed him. She needed him. That was why she saw him, why she cared about him, why she let him call himself her friend. She needed him and he needed to be strong for her so…so that was what he was going to do. He was going to be strong enough to carry her. To carry them both.
He had no choice. If he couldn't carry himself then he had no hope of carrying her.
So that was what he did. He pushed himself to stand, to hold her, to keep on holding onto her. She was saying something but he didn't know what. Everything sounded kind of far away and just…distorted. Like in that level in Yoshi's Island, touch fuzzy get dizzy, but with the audio for the Gameboy Advance version and not the Super Famicom version. The Super Famicom version was better, of course, and that was why it felt like the Gameboy Advance version. He just had to be careful, that was all, even though the world under him was moving and shaking and…and he was getting so dizzy…but he had to be there for her, he had to be strong for her, at least until she could be strong enough for both of them.
Not that she needed to be strong enough for both of them. No, that was his job. It had to be.
"It's alright, Miss Suzuki. I-I'll protect you." said Serizawa. The spirit looked at him and smirked. He sort of remembered this girl, one of Miss Suzuki's friends, and from what little he knew about her he didn't think that she was capable of looking like that. Looking so…evil. Yes, that was the word for it. He felt like he had warped right to zone eight. He couldn't do this…but he had to…and he could. He could and he would.
Even though, as the spirit opened it's mouth to speak, it felt like all the air in the room was being sucked away.
"You'll protect her? That's rich. You can't even protect yourself." Said Mogami. Hmm…now this was interesting. The man was weaker, and much more fragile, than the girl and yet he was the one standing his ground. The girl had crumpled like wet paper. Not the outcome he had been expecting, though he wasn't going to pass up a good host.
This one was starting to fall apart.
"I-I-" said Serizawa. He held his umbrella out in front of him. Miss Suzuki had given him this. She had given it to him to keep the rain off of him, not to protect himself, but right now it felt more like a shield than anything. So long as he was behind this, so long as he kept her behind it, then they would be fine.
"She protects you, doesn't she? That little girl. You know that it's not right but you still let her protect you. What's even worse is the fact that you delude yourself-" said Mogami
"I don't-" said Serizawa trying his best to find words. He was arguing with a spirit. He knew that he should have been exorcising it but he didn't know how. He just couldn't remember how. He couldn't remember how to do much more than holding out his umbrella and putting up a barrier for them to hide behind.
"You've been deluding yourself into thinking that you have even the smallest glimmer of hope of protecting her. Why? You know that she's much stronger than you'll ever hope to be." Said Mogami. If he was going to get to the girl then he was going to have to chip away at the man's defenses. She was the real prize here. The things he could do with that power. He had only felt power like that once before, back in the halcyon days of his life, before everything had gone to hell and he learned the truth about humanity. He had let that kind of power slip right through his fingers.
He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
"Miss Suzuki-" said Serizawa
"Your 'Miss Suzuki' hasn't wasted half of her life hiding in her room. She isn't such a child, a scared child, that she feared even herself. She doesn't burden others with her very existence. Not like you." said Mogami
"I…I'm…" said Serizawa. He could see it, feel it, he was even living it. His room. The darkness. It was so small. It was so…his room…and Mom had been there. She had been just as locked away in the house as he had been. He had locked her away, cut her off from the world, because he had to be such a scared, selfish, child…
That was what he was, wasn't he? A child…a burden…a burdensome child onto everyone around him…
"Now you expect her to waste her life with you. How selfish." Said Mogami
"I don't expect that…I don't expect anything. I just want…I just want to be with her…to be her friend…" said Serizawa. He wasn't lying, not to himself or the spirit. Miss Suzuki felt cold and it looked like she was sleeping. He had to protect her. He had to get her out of here or exorcise the spirit or…or something like that. He didn't know what to do besides protect her. He had to protect her. He had to not only pay her back for everything that she had done for her but also…also he was her friend. He was her friend and she was his and this was what friends did.
Friends were there for each other. Friends protected one another. Friends didn't burden other friends.
"Even now you try and convince yourself that you have something to offer her even though you know that you don't. You have nothing, you are nothing, and you'll always be nothing. Look within yourself, you know this to be true." Said Mogami
"I do have something to offer her. She's my friend and I'm hers and…and friends are there for each other. She's helping me rejoin society and I…I'm friends with her, and everyone could always use more friends." Said Serizawa, meaning every word. There was nothing in the world more important than friendship, Miss Suzuki had said so. People needed other people. There was nothing more beautiful in the world than caring for someone else. He cared about her, he loved her, she was his best friend and he…well he knew that he wasn't hers but that was alright.
He was just happy to be able to be anything at all to her.
"You should really get over yourself. It's amazing that you can stand there and tell me with a straight face that you have anything at all to offer her. You're actually going to stand there and pontificate about the power of friendship? Friendship is about as real as love is." Said Mogami. It was amazing how humans chose, time and time again, to delude themselves. To lie to themselves. To lie to each other. Even to lie to the dead.
He was glad he had long moved past such idiotic human preoccupations.
"Then it's very-" said Serizawa
"Then it's the most real thing in the world." Said Mob as she pulled herself out from whatever she had been under. It had felt like being underwater, like drowning, like she had forgotten that she knew how to swim. Serizawa reminded her that she could. She pulled her way to the surface and now she could breath again, think again, move again…now she knew what to do.
She had to save Minori and everyone else, too.
"Then you're as deluded as he is, Suzuki Shigeko." Said Mogami. Something else unexpected…but he could use this. The man finally let his barrier down and the girl…she could syphon off energy. A bit like how he, when he had been human, could consume spirits. Consuming the living…that was new. In all his existence he had never seen a power like that before.
He could do very good work with a power like that.
"Let me handle this, Miss Suzuki. You're hurt, I mean you were hurt, and you could get even more hurt and…and if you got even more hurt than I don't know what I'd do. I don't know what I'd do without you." Said Serizawa softly. Without her he was nothing. With her he was something, someone, something more than the burden he had always been. He didn't want to go back to being that person. He liked the person that he was now. The person that she had made him into.
"I don't know what I'd do without you, either." Said Mob. She didn't know what she would do without someone there who cared about her, who always wanted to be with her, who always…who she hadn't messed things up with. Not like with Minegishi. Not like with everyone else.
Serizawa always accepted her, always forgave her, not that she had ever done anything unforgivable to him…not that she ever would.
"Then please, let me help. I'd do anything for you, Miss Suzuki, you know that. If something happened to you…it's just…without you there would be no me so please, please, Miss Suzuki let me help you. Let me be the one to stop this, to save….to save you. Please." Said Serizawa softly. She took his hand, smiled, and then gently slid him backwards and away from the fight with her powers.
"I don't care if I'm hurt, I don't care at all about what happens to me. I just have to get this over with, I just have to save Minori. I just have to exorcise this spirit." Said Mob as she held her hand out and slid Serizawa backwards. She wasn't going to get him get hurt. She liked him too much, maybe even as more than a friend, but she could figure that out later when she was done here. When she exorcised this spirit. Her eyes stayed locked onto the spirit's. Those weren't Minori's eyes. This wasn't Minori…but she was going to get her back. She was going to get Minori back and she was going to make sure that she defeated this spirit.
Even if it was the last thing she ever did.
"I'd like to see you try." Said Mogami. This was going to be interesting, very interesting. Good. He'd been getting bored of all of these frauds and shysters. These liars and con artists. These deluded fools and wishful thinkers. It had been so long since he faced off against a real esper, not those fools who had been chasing him but someone at the level that he had been all those years…decades…lifetimes ago. So long since he'd found a proper, decent, host…
There was no way he was letting this one go. Even if he had to destroy it in the process.