Breaking the girl was proving to be much harder than Mogami had expected.
The host was mentally weak but psychically strong. That was the biggest problem he faced. She was too…too much. Metaphysically. Mentally the girl was as fragile as a flower. A collection of fears and insecurities strung together into the form of a person. More guilt and regret than he had ever seen before. All of it pulled together into the shape of a girl. This should have been simple.
Nothing worth doing was ever simple.
If he could break her and take her then it would be perfect. He would have had the perfect host. Someone he could remake the world with. Fixing the girl, showing her who she was, was just the icing on the cake. They were twin goals, both of equal importance, fixing the world and holding a mirror up to the whole of humanity one pitiful, disgusting, soul at a time. He could have easily killed two birds with one stone if he could have just gotten her to break.
It shouldn't have taken this long.
"Ew, I think that bird's dead or something." said the last host, motioning towards his observation post. He had taken the form of a crow again. It was a useful one, noticeably unnoticed. He had to be there, visually, since hiding himself would have taken more power than he was willing to spare. He wasn't above admitting that this entire endeavor was proving to be incredibly draining.
It would, however, be worth it.
Still, though, creating and maintaining this world was proving to be something of a challenge. The girl may have been trapped within her mind and unable to access the physical world but the metaphysical world was still within her grasp. Every time she moved, every breath she took, every move she made shook the world of his creation to its core. Espers were difficult to work with, powerful ones doubly so, and once at the upper echelons of power were something else entirely. He had sensed power like this once before, when he had still lived within the confines of his vessel, but those times were long gone. Perhaps he should have made more of a move then, to find that psychic, or at least to have some practice at holding someone as strong as this.
He did his best.
"It might just be sleeping. Some birds can sleep standing up." said the girl, her eyes meeting his. For a moment the world shimmered, imperceptible to both girls, but earth shattering to him. This much power should not have been confined to a single person. It was too much…it was a lot. He held the world still. Her eyes left his and drifted off towards the sky. He painted it quickly, not bothering with the superficial details. The same cloud, the same light pattern, and the sun in the same place. It just had to be a day, that was all, a day like any other.
A day which would serve to break her.
"That makes no sense." Said the last vessel as she twisted a piece of her hair around her finger. Breaking her had been easy, it had been her vanity and insecurity that had been her undoing. It almost pained him to undo his work, to have reset her mind back to the mess it had been before he fixed her, but it had to be done. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
He could always break and reform her again, after all, when he was done here.
"It's the truth." Said the girl, brushing her hair behind her ears. Would it be her vanity that her would attack again? No, no, the vanity was only a symptom. She had a pathological desire, no, need to be accepted. To be loved. She had all the power in the world at her fingertips and yet she allowed others to sway her like a little boat upon the sea. Nothing mattered more to this girl than getting the approval, and love, of everyone around her. Friends, lovers, and family.
He would avoid family for now.
"Who told you that? Our bio teacher?" asked the last host
"No…I think someone else did. I just don't remember who." Said the girl. Mogami cursed himself. Her power wouldn't let him lock her out of her mind, not completely. She was constantly finding new ways in. She also, somehow, wasn't even close to depleting her energy supply. Whenever it felt like she was beginning to falter an infusion of energy came from nowhere…no, from somewhere…or someone…
Not from him.
He focused his attention to the last host. The girl knew her, they had been friends in another life. The entire thing was serendipitous, really, that they would have had such a close symbiotic relationship to one another. Parasitic, in a way. Both of them chasing each other's approval in that way that only children, the weak, could. The girl wanted more than anything else to be seen as normal, valid, worthy, and loveable. The last host wanted nothing more than to have a genuine connection with someone, though she buried it under her own haughty and gaudy false confidence. These two were made for each other in a way.
He thanked himself for having the foresight to keep these two together.
"You don't want your other friends to hear her saying that, do you? What would they think of you?" said Mogami. It came out in the form of a caw, a loud one. The words made it into the last host's mind just the same. Her eyes narrowed and she let her hair be.
"That's so weird, Suzuki, you're so weird sometimes." Said the last host, practically turning her nose to the sky. Predictably the girl began to panic. He could feel her power swell. She was clawing at the prison, the gate, he had put around her mind desperately trying to figure herself a way in.
"What would people think about you knowing the company you keep?" whispered Mogami, his voice slipping into the last host's mind so smoothy that they might as well have been her own thoughts, which of course was the point of this whole endeavor.
"I'm going to go and hang out somewhere else. Maybe Akebi-" said the host as she tried to clamber to her feet. He could barely keep the grass beneath her feet in place in that moment. The girl was reaching out with her powers again, perhaps even strong enough to affect the real world. It took everything he had to keep this world, the one of his making, in place.
She was a strong one, and a stubborn one, but he was finding her weaknesses slowly but surely.
"I heard it in biology class, that's all. Just…in biology." Said the girl
"You actually pay attention in bio?" asked the old host, sitting back down. If Mogami had still been able to sweat he would have wiped the sweat from his brow. That had been a close one, though not as close as the last time…no, he was never trying to fabricate both of the parents at once. Much too complicated.
His own mother, even, hadn't been so complex.
"I like biology…animals, I mean. I like animals." Said the girl, softly. He could even see it, she was trying to conjure an image of her brother. He needed to move her away from this. Family was powerful in destabilizing her but right now he didn't need a stick of dynamite, he needed a series of controlled explosions. This was a demolition project, not a natural disaster. Family was too much and friendship was going too slowly. What else was there?
Lovers?
He stopped time, held it in place, for the fraction of a second it took to browse the deeper reaches of her mind. Lovers, men, sex…things that she paradoxically didn't like to dwell on but spent much of her life obsessing over. Another way she had transgressed against another…lost the esteem of another…a close friend…
He wasn't going to conjure up that friend.
He had people, the ones closest to her, but they were going to stay dolls for now. He had no idea if he was going to be able to accurately replicate them. The mother had been simplest, she'd had the fewest memories of her but also the fewest expectations. People she was close to were going to be much more difficult. It was possible, rare but not unheard of, for someone to break out of this world. The one of his creation. Mediums, usually, couldn't be held for more than a few minutes. Normally when he had someone in this deep they believed everything but this girl…the power she held in her hands…
And the power that was being placed into her hands.
He kept time where it was. This was going to be useful to him, she was primed for another scenario. Something else to break her. Friendship and love, romance, desire, and sex. Both at once, with a smattering of guilt and shame, might have been the thing to break her. For female hosts lust and shame were usually companions. Before he acted, however, he had to do something about the outside world.
He peaked his head, his metaphysical self, upwards.
"Please…Miss Suzuki…please be ok…." Oh. It was that man she was with…Serizawa. She thought of him often and….well that was interesting. She cared for this man in so many ways…he had no idea why. Maybe because they were kindred spirits, two people who had done nothing more than waste the gifts that they had been born with. Or perhaps it was because he was dependent on her…something that the man would never admit…
He could use this.
It was something of a strain, really, splitting his attention like this but it was something that he had to do. This wouldn't do at all. The man was holding her hand, making both physical and metaphysical, contact with the girl. She was leeching power from him in much the same way spirits leeched power from their environments. That was why she was so strong, why she wasn't breaking, and why she still had access to her mind. This man was like an open door just letting everything he had, everything he was, flow into this girl.
A door opened two ways.
Mogami split his focus further. He let a tendril of himself travel up from the girl to the man. There was no way he was going to be able to trap this man within his own mind, no, there was strength in his weakness. Even now, even at this distance, his mind was a fortress and the words 'Miss Suzuki' were the walls. Mogami wasn't going to chip away at these walls until they fell, no, he didn't have the strength. He was just going to slip by, slip in, and do a little quick sabotage. A few well placed words and the whole structure would, not collapse, but waver.
That was all he needed, really.
"What can you possibly do? She's Miss Suzuki, the most powerful person you've ever met. That little girl has more strength in her last finger than you do in your entire body. She never hides, she doesn't even know the meaning of the word. She doesn't feel fear or apprehension but you…you want to run, you need to run, and you should run…after all, you're just slowing her down. Just distracting her." There. He whispered those words directly into the man's mind and…yes, the structure did waver. Mogami quickly dove back into the girl.
That had been a lot.
He didn't have to stick around to know that his plan had worked. The constant stream of energy was suddenly cut off leaving the girl helpless. He quickly moved time forward, let the girls move. That had been too much time leaving them alone with their own thoughts. The girl had even been marshalling energy…
Time to dissipate that.
"Yeah, I guess animals can be ok. Like the zoo and stuff, but only when there's no one else there." Said the last vessel
"You mean like when it's closed?" asked the girl
"No, like when your parents rent it out for you. It's so nice, you don't have to deal with any crowds and you can see all the animals and they even let you pet them. Things are always so much better when there aren't other people around. You can just have fun, you know?" said the last vessel. Hmm….no, no, no. That wouldn't do at all. His little sojourn to the outside world had taken more out of him than he had planned. The old vessel had managed to get back into her own mind as well.
This wouldn't do at all.
He took the form of an insect, an ant, something that would let him actually touch the last vessel's metaphysical self. It took more out of him, doing this, but he couldn't afford to lose the world. Not yet. Two people was already such a strain...but he would not falter. No, he couldn't. He hadn't faltered with mother and he wouldn't falter here.
He couldn't afford to fail. Not when there was so much work to be done.
"You're not a child anymore, are you? Then why do you care so much about a childhood excursion. Why not focus on the things that matter. You're a young woman, act like it." Whispered Mogami. He was brushed away. He let himself fall to the ground. It didn't matter, it didn't pain him, and his work was done.
"We aren't kids anymore, why are we talking about the zoo?" asked the last vessel
"Because we like it?" said the girl, her voice dripping with so much uncertainty that it was palpable. Good. She would, at this point, do whatever her so called friend would ask of her.
"We aren't little kids anymore. We should focus on the important things." Said the last vessel
"Our families?" asked the girl. The last vessel rolled her eyes. He hadn't even had to tell her to do that, that sort of nastiness had just come from within. At least one of them was making this job easy.
"Our families worry about us, Suzuki, not the other way around." said the previous vessel
"Oh…ok. That makes sense. I mean I worry about my family, they've been so weird lately, but…but you're right, Minori, you're always right. We should focus on the important things like…um…" said the girl
"Do you really not know?" asked the previous vessel
"I kind of…don't know. Did you mean school?" asked the girl
"Are you drunk or something? No, wait, I know you aren't. You aren't fun like that. Not school, it's for nerds. I told you that already. All we have to do is graduate and then we can have fun and party all the time. You know, drink and meet guys and do all that stuff." Said the last vessel
"But don't we have to focus on school so we can get to university and meet boys and have parties and…stuff?" asked the girl
"We have guys and parties and stuff like that right here…hey! You know what we should do?" asked the last vessel
"Finish lunch so we can get back to class before the bell rings and the teacher yells at us…at me. Probably at me." said the girl
"We should go on a double date. It's so weird that we don't have boyfriends. We're in middle school, not grade school, we need boyfriend." Said the last vessel. The subtlest of suggestions had been placed. He knew how this particular vessel had defined adulthood, success with the opposite sex amongst other things, and perhaps this would be the thing to break the girl. It would take effort to fabricate someone else but it was effort worth expending.
"But my mom and dad-" said the girl
"You said that your dad was back wherever his work is and your mom is a total basket case. Just sneak out and have fun with me. Come on, I thought that we were friends, Suzuki." Said the last vessel. This was it, the moment of truth. He could feel the girl deliberating, debating with herself. Did she do the right thing and honor her parents or did she betray their trust and act in her own self interest, selfishly doing whatever she could to chase the approval of another?
It hadn't been a very long debate after all.
"Sure…but only for a little bit…and only if my mom is taking one of her long naps where I'm not supposed to disturb her…which is pretty much all of her naps now that I think about it." Said the girl. If Mogami had still been able to draw breath he would have been holding it. That had been close but…no, it hadn't. With her outside supply of power cut off she was unable to access her mind. Yes…she had no idea what was coming.
It was perfect.
It would take everything in his, perhaps, to hold back the emotional tsunami that would come with recreating one of the most shameful episodes of this girl's life but the payout would be worth it. The emotions surrounding her family members were far too complex, she didn't even understand them herself so he couldn't possibly even accurately fabricate these people, but the emotions surrounding this mistake that she had made, this betrayal of her best friend…he could use this. These were there, they were simple, and it wouldn't have been the first time he had used love and sex to manipulate someone. Yes…this was going to work out perfectly.
Breaking the girl was proving to be much harder than Mogami had ever expected but it wasn't an impossible task, no, far from it and the payout…oh, it would be glorious.