There were a lot of stars out that night.

There were so many of them and they were all so beautiful…she wished that she'd been able to remember them better. That she had a good enough memory of them that she could have closed her eyes and seen them in her mind whenever she wanted to. But she didn't, but that was ok, that was why she was here. That was why she was laying down on the cold, uneven, ground smoking with her little brother and looking up at all the stars in the sky…more stars than she could count…

There were more stars in the sky than she had memories in her head. Good memories.

She passed the pen over to Sho, the stars above her disappearing in a puff of smoke. She knew that they were still there, though, and half a second later they were. She wondered why she had never really looked at them before. Probably because she hadn't appreciated them. She had read that on a fortune cookie once, you never know what you have until it's gone.

There was a lot of wisdom in fortune cookies.

She wished she had fortune cookies right now. She wished that now, in her hand, she had a bunch of fortune cookies and also Chinese food. Fried rice, that sounded good right now, and fried dough and fried crabsticks and fried eggrolls, and fried noodles…a lot of fried stuff. With a big glass of strawberry milk to wash it all down…and then also cookies.

Or poptarts.

"Sho, can I have one?" asked Mob as the sound of crunching cut through the night air. She turned to her side. Sho has a whole box of poptarts next to him, probably from his secret stash. She knew that those were his personal poptarts but she was really hungry. She had skipped dinner that night like she had for all of these past nights. She just didn't want to have to sit at the table with Dad. He was always either mean, weird, weirdly mean, or meanly weird when they were together.

She'd been dealing with that for the past almost fourteen years. She needed a break.

"Fine, but one I don't like." Said Sho as he dug around in the box with his powers. He didn't want to sit up, the ground was too comfortable. He had never realized how soft grass was, even in the winter, or maybe this was late spring. Whatever season April was. It may have been cold but the grass was soft, big sis was there, and he had a variety box of poptarts. Life was good, for now, and once they beat Dad they'd be able to do this every single night.

And every single night she could have the key lime pie ones.

"Here, take this one before it kills me." said Sho

"Is it orange popsicle again?" asked Mob as she took the shiny piece of foil wrapped deliciousness from Sho. She didn't care what it was, she was just starving. She would have eaten anything, even a cilantro flavored one.

"No, key lime pie." Said Sho

"I don't mind these. If you want to you can just take out all the citrus ones and give them to me. That way you won't accidentally die." Said Mob

"No way you could eat all of those. Shimazaki stole this from a grocery store, it's got about a million poptarts in it." Said Sho

"I think that I could too eat it." Said Mob, sounding kind of young. It was nice, being able to remember how things used to be, even if they hadn't been that good. When she and Sho had been little they used to have a lot of these arguments. Did not, did too, over and over again…they had fought a lot back then. It kind of hurt to think about…but it was nice to be able to remember. To have a past, a history, and best of all even a little brother! Even if they hadn't exactly been the best of times…

At least it hadn't been the worst of times.

"Could not. You'd explode or have a heart attack or something." said Sho

"I think that I could. I'm really hungry…I couldn't eat dinner tonight…or last night…or the one before it." Said Mob

"Because all you made were eggs and they taste boring?" asked Sho. After he and Big Sis took over the world he was going to make sure that he never, ever, had to eat eggs again. Not for any meal, not in any place, and not for any reason. Even if he was starving or something he would rather have eaten his shoes than another omelet!

And his shoes were really dirty!

"No, because Dad was there." Said Mob as she bit into her poptart. She liked them better warm, not that she would ever tell Sho that. No, sometimes it was best to agree with the people you loved. If it didn't hurt anyone, that is.

"Dad sucks." Said Sho. Big Sis shushed him and pointed towards the house. Sho rolled his eyes.

"Dad sucks! He sucks dicks! He sucks more dick than an out of work salary man in a public bathroom during Golden Week!" shouted Sho. Big Sis rolled over and covered his mouth with both of her hands. He tried licking her hands to try and get her to stop but he'd done that too many times. She was immune now and he had no way to get rid of her. Not unless he used his powers or pushed her off, but no, he wouldn't do that.

Dad was the one who sucked, not him.

"Sho! Stop it, Dad can hear you!" said Mob. The house was right there, Dad's light was still on, he was still awake and at any time he could have gone out there and told them to stop and then Sho, she knew her little brother well by this point, would say something bad and then Dad would get mad and then they'd end up in a great big fight and she didn't want to get into a great big fight! Not now!

She was going to put the fight off for as long as she could.

"So? Let him hear me. What's he going to do? Hit me?" asked Sho

"Yes." Said Mob. She didn't even know why that was a question. Of course Dad was going to hit him, Dad loved hitting people, and he didn't like Sho. So of course Dad would hit him to make him stop yelling or maybe even just because he liked it. Dad was such a jerk sometimes…a lot of the time…

"You could beat him." said Sho

"I don't want to…not yet. Not until I have to." Said Mob

"I don't know, it might be better to try and stop him when he least expects it. Like when he's asleep or playing Minecraft or eating dinner or-" said Sho

"I'll do it when I do it, ok? I don't want to fight anyone right now, I want to enjoy the colors and the night and the fact that you're my little brother and I can remember you again! Is that so much to ask?" asked Mob

"Uh…no, I guess not…" said Sho

"Thank you, little brother." Said Mob before she turned back onto her back and took another bite of poptart. The stars were there. She reached out for her pen…she had passed it to Sho and he had never passed it back. Great…non-sarcastic great. He could have it if he wanted to. She didn't mind, she wanted him to be happy, she was a good sister and she wanted her little brother to be happy.

She'd be happy when he was done being happy.

"You've been smoking too much, though, if you're having trouble remembering me." said Sho as he hit the pen. This one tasted weirdly like blueberries. He hated it when she got the ones that tasted like fruit but she got whatever Shimazaki got and he got whatever the guys he knew got and they got whatever came in on the boats from other places. The second thing that they were going to do once they ruled the world, after they outlawed eggs as a meal, was going to be to make this stuff legal so you could go and get whatever kind you wanted from anywhere in the world. Even through delivery.

Also no more citrus on anything, in anything, or sold anywhere.

"It's not the smoking it's the…the time with the spirit, that's all. It made me forget you…you and everyone else I love." Said Mob as Sho passed her the pen. She inhaled deeply, as deeply as she could, until it felt like her lungs were about to explode. Then she, finally, exhaled. She felt better in an instant. She stopped worrying about Dad or what she was going to have to do to him or…or how she was going to have to crush all of his dreams…

And now she felt bad again. She hit the pen again. And then she felt better.

"Like amnesia or something?" asked Sho

"No, more like…like being in an alternate dimension. I don't know, it was bad, but it's over now and I learned my lesson. I'm never, ever, going to let that happen again." Said Mob

"Well yeah, you're going to be President of the world! You'll have guys to take care of that stuff for you." said Sho

"I don't know if I want that." Said Mob. She didn't want to send people to deal with dangerous things like the spirit and she didn't know, too, if she wanted to be President of the whole world. She loved her family, she loved Claw, and she loved the world but being in charge of all of that…running her house was hard, running Claw was harder, and running the world…when would she sleep? When would she have time to spend with Sho? Or Mukai? Or Minegishi? Or Serizawa…that is if he ever stopped hanging out with Fukuda…but still! If she was running the world then she'd never have a free moment again until she died and maybe even not then if she lingered as a spirit!

But it was better her than Dad…

"Why the hell not? You-you could be the guy in charge? Or…girl…but you know what I mean. You could do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted and Dad couldn't tell you to stop because he'd be dead." Said Sho. He wished that he'd been strong enough to beat Dad on his own. Then he would have made Dad pay for everything, everything that had happened in his life, everything that had gone wrong. He could have beaten Dad and then been in charge and then he could have made the world a better place. He could have found homes for all the orphaned animals, he could have made a law forbidding moms to leave their families, he could have put braille on all the boxes and bags and cans and street signs and everywhere else that Shimazaki might have needed to read stuff. He could have put steps, too, on everything that Mukai would have needed to reach…and everything would have been free, including the aquarium, and he could have made it as big as an ocean and also there would have been a giant touch tank since those were cool and Shiori agreed with him on that. He would have done so many things if he'd been in charge…

But he wasn't. Big Sis was going to be President. He was just going to be Sho, as usual.

She should have been happy but, instead, her aura pulled in really close and she turned around. She even let her poptart fall to the ground. Not that it mattered if it got dirt in it, the dirt might have even improved on the flavor, but that wasn't like her at all. Sho didn't know what he was supposed to do here. She should have been happy. He was happy.

They were finally going to be free of Dad.

"Hey Big Sis…you ok?" asked Sho as he poked her shoulder.

"No." said Mob. She didn't want to lie, not to him, and not to herself either. She didn't know if she could do it. She didn't know if she had it in her to kill anyone. She had never killed anyone before, she had never wanted to, and she didn't want to now! She just…she couldn't.

She just couldn't.

"Why not? Dad's going to be gone soon and then we can do whatever we want!" said Sho

"Dad's not going to be gone because…because I don't want to hurt him and…and anyway we already kind of do whatever we want and…and…and it's a lot, ok? I've never killed anyone before and…and if I can get away with not killing Dad I will." Said Mob. She heard shuffling and then the next thing she knew Sho was laying down on the grass beside her. He had gotten up and moved instead of asking her to turn around.

Not that she would have.

"Big Sis…you have to." Said Sho. Why didn't she get it? There was no way that Dad was going to give up. He wasn't going to give up unless you beat him really badly, probably badly enough to kill him, or to injure him for the rest of his life. Sometimes you had to go that far and…and she was just like Fukuda! Fukuda had this plan where they cut off Dad's resources and trapped him and gave him up to the government. Like the government's espers ever could have held him. If those guys were so good then they would have been a part of Claw. No. There was no way but his way.

He was the only one in the family willing to go far enough.

"That's easy for you to say." Said Mob. She hadn't been thinking, that was something that she should have kept in her own mind, something that she never should have said…it was mean. She had been mean. She had been…she had been mean but Sho asking her to make that kind of choice was mean too!

No.

She was just being a bad sister. She should have been happy that he was there for her, there beside her, there talking to her and being real. She was so bad at being…at being a big sister. At being Mob…but she had to be good at being Mob. Who else could she have been? She had to…she had to do what had to be done.

She just…didn't have it in her.

"No it's not." Said Sho

"Yes it is. You're not the one who has to-" said Mob

"I was the one who had to, I'm the one who's been planning this since I was a kid. I was the one who…who came up with this with Fukuda and…and I don't know how else we can win. Fukuda had a plan where we would cut off Dad's resources and trap him for the government's espers but…but they can't hold him. There's no way to hold him and nothing…this is the only way, ok?" asked Sho. He hadn't yelled at her, he was proud of that fact. He hadn't shouted at her, he hadn't yelled, and he hadn't even cursed. She should have liked that…she should have been happy…but she wasn't.

She got up.

"I don't want either of us to have to hurt anyone and…and I don't want to fight. Here, you can have the rest of this." Said Mob as she tossed Sho the pen. She got up and started walking. She could hear him telling her to stay, telling her that he was sorry, telling her all kinds of things. She knew that if they stayed then they'd fight and she didn't want that.

She didn't want to remember him like that.

She had enough memories as it was of Sho and her fighting. Sometimes it felt like that was all that they had done when they had been little. Kind of just one long fight with little truces along the way. The sort of thing that just…just hurt to remember. They could have used that time to be friends, to make good memories, the kind of thing that they would have wanted to carry with each other wherever they went. But no, all they had was fighting.

She wasn't going to add to that.

And she wasn't going to go home, either. She was going to go somewhere, to someone, she had a lot of good memories with. Her best friend. She could have gone to Serizawa but he was with Fukuda and being with Fukuda hurt worse than fighting with Sho. She actually had good memories with him, she'd actually been his friend and he'd been hers, but then everything had gone wrong and stayed that way. She didn't want to fight with him…she didn't want to fight with anyone.

She wanted to go somewhere nice.

So that was what she did. She crossed the yard, went over the garden wall, and then the next thing she knew she was slipping her shoes off and looking for Minegishi. The house was way too quiet at night. Hatori was with Dad, Shimazaki went out at night, and everyone else was in Seasoning City waiting for them to take over the world…that day. Her birthday. She could only feel one aura in the house and it was Minegishi's.

They were reading and watching TV at the same time.

"I can sense you back there, you know." said Minegishi, not looking up from their book. They were trying to get some reading done while they could. It was getting to be May and with that would come their hostile takeover of Japan…and Mob's hostile takeover of Claw. If they won then Minegishi didn't see themselves having any spare time for reading and if they didn't they'd be dead and there probably weren't any good books in hell. Probably just something stupid like library books with the endings torn out or just the filler arcs in manga. They had so many books to finish and so little time.

They kept on reading. They took their feet off of the seat next to them and kept on reading but they at least made room for Mob.

"Um…" said Mob. The TV was on but they were only listening to it. If this had been a normal night then it would have been move night, but they didn't have those anymore, not since everyone got scattered around. She didn't know what she was supposed to do or say. She wanted to be with Minegishi and now she was with them but…but she didn't know what to say.

She knew what she wanted to say, of course, but she had no idea how to say it.

"Please don't tell me that you're going to drop something earth shattering over my head again." Said Minegishi

"I'm not going to drop anything earth shattering over your head or…or anything at all!" said Mob

"Really? You don't have anything to say, any big news, anything that's going to take another decade or so off of my life?" asked Minegishi

"No, nothing like that…I mean…" said Mob. She didn't know if this counted as earth shattering or not. She had to fight Dad, maybe even kill him, but she just…didn't want to. She didn't want to hurt him or anyone. She loved him, part of her did, and an even bigger part of her wanted everything and everyone to just…to just be ok. No more fighting, no more hurting one another, no more pain. Just all of them being together and just…being happy. Like what Claw was supposed to be.

"Oh God…" muttered Minegishi. They braced themselves for the worst. She was pregnant. She was going to run away. She was going to kill someone. She had killed someone. There was a giant meteor headed for earth and they only had seconds left to survive…

With the way things had been going lately that last option sounded pretty great.

"What's it like? I mean…killing someone. I know that you've done it before." Said Mob softly. She couldn't look at them. She heard them close their book and put it down on the floor. She still couldn't look at them. How could she have possibly looked at them after asking them something so personal and so…so…

So none of her business.

"Sorry! I mean I know that it's none of my business and I know that it's probably a lot of painful memories and-" said Mob

"It's not…not painful, I mean." Said Minegishi. She put 'Mob's killed someone' at the bottom of their 'shaving years off of their life' list. Because Mob had. Many times. The eighth division was gone because of her, she'd blown up the seventh division, and that was just what had happened since they'd come into each other's lives. Killing people was just…a thing that you had to do sometimes. They had never given it much thought, it had just been a job to them. The only time it had ever been personal had been with their parents. That had been the only time that they'd enjoyed it.

Once was enough.

"It's just…a thing that I do. Sometimes you die, sometimes you kill someone else. It's never really mattered to me." said Minegishi

"But…it's killing someone." Said Mob. She couldn't imagine anything worse than killing someone else. That was the one thing that she couldn't take back. It was worse than fighting with someone, worse than hurting them, worse than even sending them to Fukuda. She just…she didn't know how she could live with herself if she'd had to do that and she didn't know how Minegishi, the nicest person she knew, could have been so…ok…with what they had done.

"I know, Mob, I know, but for me it's always been like…squishing a bug. Just something that I had to do to survive. Before you I didn't really have much space in my life for moral contemplation." Said Minegishi

"Because…because before me your life was really hard?" asked Mob. They'd told her bits and pieces of their childhood before. How their parents hadn't liked them, how they'd hit them and starved them, and then what it had been like in the group home and their girlfriend breaking up with them when they grew up…their life had been terrible. Not the worse life she had ever heard about, that was Shimazaki's, but still a bad one.

The kind that maybe could have led someone to kill people…but Mob's life hadn't been nearly that bad!

"More or less, Mob, more or less. The only time I actually felt anything was when I was dealing with my parents…but that was years ago, they'd had it coming for a while, and anyway you were a baby then and we hadn't even met yet. It's got nothing to do with…with whatever brought you here." Said Minegishi. Something was up with Mob but they didn't know what. She must have gotten into the records and seen what she'd done…no, she had been asking. Which meant that she wanted to know what it was like which meant that she was going to kill someone…planning on it…

Alright then.

"So…who has it coming?" asked Minegishi. Mob got a look in her eyes that could only have been called 'dark' or maybe even 'worrying'.

"Anyone who's ever hurt you before." Said Mob. She was, when she took over the world, going find everyone who'd ever hurt her friends and then…something would happen…something.

"No, I mean who are you planning on killing?" asked Minegishi. Mob drew her knees up to her chest. That was…not a good sign. They sighed and scooted closer to her, even putting an arm around her shoulders. Her aura crackled against them like static electricity. They kept their arm right there, though, and they stayed right where they needed to stay.

They'd always be there for her no matter what…and there had been a lot of 'what' over the years.

"I'm not planning on killing anyone but Sho says…but I think that I'm going to have to kill me Dad and…and I don't want to! But he's not going to stop being…being mean and I have to be there for everyone and…and I don't want to fight him at all and-" said Mob as she tried to keep her powers in check and her tears in her eyes where they belonged. She didn't want to lose control but she could feel it slipping through her fingers…and she couldn't stop it no matter how hard she tried…but she kept on trying and trying and trying until-

-until she was pulled into a hug.

"Leave it to…if it comes down to it then I'll be the one to end him, I'll deliver the finishing blow." Said Minegishi as Mob got herself more and more worked up. She didn't have it in her, Minegishi didn't have to be a psychic to see that, and they…they did. Either you did or you didn't have it in you and they did. They did and…and this was something that they were going to have to do. They were going to have to deliver the finishing blow after Mob softened him up, of course they couldn't take him, but they were ok with that.

It wasn't any different, really, than what they'd been doing since they joined Claw all those years ago.

"Thank you." said Mob softly as she hugged Minegishi. She loved them so much and…and they shouldn't have had to do that for her but they knew how and they were good at it and…and there was only so much that Mob could do. Even if this was what was best for her family and her friends and Claw and, even, the entire world she just…she just couldn't. She just wasn't that person but Minegishi was and they would always be there for her.

That was just who they were, her best friend, and she had as many good memories with them as there were stars in the sky.