Sho didn't know how he felt about being in charge.

"Come on, hurt people in that pile and dead people in the other." Said Sho as he pointed to the clearly marked spots on the floor. The only place big enough to hold everyone was the loading area where the supply trucks came in. The sick bay didn't have nearly enough beds…he wasn't even sure if the Division it's self had enough beds. There were a lot of people that had been brought here just for the uprising. He wasn't sure if they had been told where to sleep, or where to work, or even what their names were…this was really more of Big Sis's area of expertise…but she had left him in charge.

Even if he had never been in charge before.

"No, the other way around. Can't you guys read?" asked Sho. He didn't think that his handwriting was that bad…though he knew that Big Sis's was better. She was better than him at a lot of things…but he was still going to try. She didn't want this, he reminded himself at the Awakened stared at him, and he…he…

He hadn't ever let himself want this.

"But Miss Suzuki would have wanted-" said the Awakened in front of him. Sho ran a hand though his hair and tried to stay calm.

"My sister put me in charge and I said that the dead guys go over here and the hurt guys go over there. What? You don't speak Japanese?" asked Sho

"Can we hear it from Miss Suzuki?" asked the Awakened. A bunch of other guys nodded…and they were all staring…but this was good, right? This meant that they were loyal to big sis, not dad, and that meant that they would do what she said…but she didn't want to boss them around…but Sho was there and he was the next best thing.

Or the first.

"Yeah, Miss Suzuki would have wanted us to-" said another Awakened

"Well I'm not my sister. I'm the one talking to you, not her, and what I say goes." Said Sho. He thought that he'd mad himself clear…but it wasn't like he'd had a lot of practice when it came to things like this. Fukuda had been the only person, really, to take orders from him and that was different since they used to be friends. They knew each other. Sho wasn't big sis, he hadn't tried to make friends with every single awakened that he saw, and anyway that shouldn't have mattered! He was the one in charge here even if he wasn't very good at it yet.

He just hadn't had a lot of practice, that was all.

"But Miss Suzuki usually tells us what to do…and we're more used to that so if you could just find her and have her tell us what to do then that would be good." said one of the Awakened, one that he knew he had never seen before. Another one muttered something about her being a usurper…he wasn't sure what that meant but he was sure that maybe getting rid of the traitor holes wasn't happening anytime soon.

"No, I told you already, she's busy." Said Sho

"Doing what?" asked an Awakened

"Sister stuff, leave me alone and get back to work! That's an order!" said Sho. There was some grumbling before they went back to putting the dead guys where they belonged and the hurt guys away from the dead guys. He stood there and watched them to make sure that they kept on listening to him. This would have been so much easier with Big Sis around to remind them he was in charge.

But she was busy.

He ignored the way her aura looked, and felt, for his own sanity. He could deal with her being weird and stealing his good pants but the stuff with Shimazaki was just to…not the kind of thing he wanted to think about when it came to his sister! He stuck out his tongue and shook his head. One of the Awakened looked over and copied him….which was weird.

But better than the alternative.

He watched their auras. A lot dimmer. Nobody looked pissed off though, which was good, and even if they were…he was reminded of that scene from that old bug movie he used to watch when he was little. When the grasshopper threw all the seeds at the other grasshopper and asked him if it hurt. It was kind of like that with the Awakened. On their own they weren't much of a threat but together they could do some real damage. That was probably why Dad had made so many, even if most of them were useless, and why he'd brought so many when he…when he tried to…

He lost.

Sho needed air, fresh air, air that didn't smell like blood. The whole room had that weird metal smell to it, probably because so many of them were super hurt…Fukuda was fine, he had to be, and Sho…he wasn't worried. The JSDF wasn't coming for them, they had Dad after all, and that meant that anyone who'd been left behind was just…either super hurt or on their way. Or hiding like Shibata and Tsuchiya were. Mukai was way too little to see all of that, all the blood and screaming and crying and dying, she was probably off in some safehouse somewhere playing with her toys or jumping on the couch or watching TV. He'd come and get her later.

Much later.

He took a deep breath as soon as he was in the fresh air. It was cold, not as cold as that morning though, and the air smelled a lot better out in the woods than in the city. Maybe that was why Dad had built the Division so far out there. Or maybe because he used to play in the woods when he'd been a kid. Sho closed his eyes. He couldn't feel Dad there. As much as Fukuda had tried to make it so, as many times as he'd tried to show Sho that fort in the woods and all the places they'd hung out, none of Dad lingered. His aura was gone. The heavy feeling Sho got when he was near was gone. Dad was well and truly gone.

And Sho could finally breath.

And breath in whatever he wanted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some more of what he'd stolen from Big Sis. Smoking helped a lot. He could see why she did this so often. Joints, cigarettes, whatever…all he had left were cigarettes. Whatever, not as good as a joint but better than nothing, at least now he could do whatever he wanted. Not that he had cared that much about Dad, he told himself, mostly because he hadn't wanted to deal with Fukuda always trying to tell him what to do. Being all concerned even when he didn't have to be. Worrying that Sho was going to turn out like Big Sis, not that he knew what was so bad about her, Fukuda was just old and grumpy and jerky. Being Dad's friend for thirty years would do that to a person.

Maybe things could be better now.

Sho exhaled and watched the smoke. It didn't look like anything. He looked up. No clouds. When he and Big Sis had been little they used to look up at the clouds and try so see things in them. Fukuda had been there too, and sometimes Mom, though not towards the end when she had gotten super sick…sick of Dad. Dad had that effect on people. Maybe with Dad gone Fukuda could go back to normal. Sho smiled at the thought. Things had been really good back then. Back before Mom left, before Dad dragged them around the world with him, before things got all complicated. Fukuda had no reason to be a jerk and maybe now things could just go back to being normal and not complicated and just…good.

It would be easy without Dad around to ruin everything like he always did.

More people were coming, he could feel their auras…Scars. A few of them. He didn't know all of their names, just their powers, and even that…well they didn't hold a candle to him. With Dad gone he was the second most powerful esper around. He couldn't do everything that Big Sis could do but being second best was enough for him, he was still better than most espers, including these guys. He watched them come up the road…mask guy, the Division leader, was at the front. Sho narrowed his eyes and let his cigarette fall to the ground. He crushed it under his shoe as he sized these guys up.

Hostile intent.

"Sick and dead people go in there, everyone else has to go inside." Said Sho as he pointed to the door. The division leader was there along with the fire guy. The samurai guy was in the way back along with Mohawk-san. Sho narrowed his eyes. That was a lot of power…but he was the second best esper around. He could take them if he had to.

"Now." said Sho

"I think not. With your Father gone-" said the Division Leader

"My sister is in charge and she decided that I'm going to be in charge for her so here I am. Now go inside, put your names down on the 'alive and not hurt list' and then go and pick a job from the job list. We're got to sort out the living from the dead, figure out how to get everyone back to their divisions, and then-" said Sho

"I think not. Claw won't survive with a child at the helm. We need leadership." Said the division leader. Sho narrowed his eyes.

"I'm guessing you're going to say something like 'mine' next and then try and attack me. Then those guys are going to back you up and you think that you'll be the next President of Claw or something, right?" asked Sho, crossing his arms.

"Something like that. Now stand aside, child, I don't want to harm you." said the division leader. Sho rolled his eyes.

"Well I do." Said Sho before he gave, hopefully gave, Ishiguro another scar to match the ones Dad gave him. It wasn't really much, he could have killed him if he'd wanted to, he knew how to make energy bombs that could probably blow people apart. He just knocked his mask off, that was all, and made him bleed a little.

Big Sis would understand.

"You impudent little brat!" shouted the division leader before everything got really hot. So that was the signal, huh? Lame signal in Sho's opinion. The lamest, the absolute most dick suckingly lamest…thing…ever…he focused on how lame this was as he tried to get rid of the fire. It was high, it was hot, and he hadn't made fire in a long time. Not anything more than lighting a cigarette, and even then not that often since it bothered Big Sis, but he could do this. If it could be done then it could be undone, Dad had said that once, once when he had gone along and they'd been surrounded by these triad guys…fire! Fire needed air and water, no, not water…but he could move air!

He was telekinetic. He could move anything.

"Thanks for that, it was kind of cold out!" said Sho as he moved the air, and everything else, away from the fire. He wound up with a massive ring of moved dirt and roots around him, kind of like making a great wall of sand at the beach. He didn't have much time to enjoy it though. Another aura was getting closer, and someone was calling their attack like this was a movie or something.

"Cursed Cut Catastrophe!" shouted the samurai guy as he swung down directly above Sho's head. He quickly put up a barrier, the thickest one he could, and he stopped the sword! Wait, no, he just slowed it down. It was cutting slowly, like trying to cut through a giant stack of pancakes on your birthday with a butter knife, and with just as much effort, too. Beads of sweat were falling off the wannabe samurai guy, blood too, since he was hurt so bad…they were all hurt really bad. Sho strengthened his barrier, maybe he needed to go easy on these guys.

"Ballistic barrage!"

Or maybe not. Another attack, this time a punch of his barrier. It was so hard that it made the whole thing shake like a jello tower. There was a weird plasticy sound coming from his barrier…no, it was coming from the sword. The sword! It wasn't a sword at all, he remembered, it was just a cheap toy. He looked up as another punch hit his barrier. It even said 'Made in China' on it! The guy could make curses, that was the scary part, but curses could be undone easily! Dad had showed him how when he'd been a baby!

He dropped his barrier.

"You know, a guy your age shouldn't be playing with toys. It's weird." Said Sho as he grabbed the sword with his right hand. It burned. It felt like he'd put his hand directly onto the electric stove burner and kept it there. He could smell…smelled kind of like ham…but that wasn't important! He held the sword even though it burnt, even though everything inside of him was telling him to get rid of it, even though all the muscles in his body were telling him not to pull it in closer. He ignored everything and pulled it as hard as he could with his right. It would have been better to use both hands but his other hand was busy.

Though maybe he should have done this with the hand that he didn't draw with.

"What's with you? Is all the metal in your face messing with your brain? Don't call your attacks, it makes you way too easy to counter." Said Sho as he took everything else that he had in him and batted the guy's fist away. Dad could do this, he could move things way heavier than a person, and Big Sis…well she'd beaten Dad, this would have been nothing for her. But it was something for Sho, something hard, something that…that he had to do.

Even if he hurt his own hand in the process.

"If you guys wanted a fair fight you should have called Mukai. I'm sure she would have gone easy on you!" Said Sho as he pulled the sword from the guy's hands and kicked him in the stomach. He took the sword in both hands and broke it in half, trying his best to destroy the curse on it. Both of his hands hurt. One was burnt, the other one was bloody with extra finger corners, but he couldn't let it show. Nobody could know that it hurt, conceal don't feel and other stuff like that. He looked around. Samurai guy was laying on the ground holding his stomach, mohawk guy was crying and holding his arm…the one with all the bones sticking out, and fire guy was buried in the dirt. He wasn't sure if the guy had air, his legs were in the air and his head was underground, but that was what he got for fucking with Sho!

Nobody fucked with the president of Claw and got away with it!

"Thanks guys, that was fun. Maybe next time we can play Mortal Kombat, at least then you'd have a chance!" laughed Sho, making sure to rub it in super hard, like rubbing salt in someone's wounds, not that he'd ever done that. That was the kind of sick thing that Dad would do after he beat someone. Sho, on the other hand, was just going to take his win and have another cigarette while he watched his opponents suffering on the ground. It served them right, he thought as he pulled another one from the pack, since they had thought that they could oppose Big Sis, and him, that they had thought that they could beat him.

His cigarette flew from his hands.

"What the hell! I beat you!" said Sho as his shirt tried to flip up over his head. A bunch of leaves flew into his hair. He felt himself being dragged along the forest floor. He used his powers to try and keep himself rooted in place. He looked up. A black orb…this guy! Didn't he know when he was beat!

"As if you stood a chance! Now I tried to show some compassion because you're a child but now you've given me no choice! My black orbs will tear your limb from limb!" shouted Ishiguro! Sho spat at him…and it just wound up flying upwards and hitting him between the eyes. Great, now he had two problems…but the orbs were the most important one! He didn't know if he could move gravity it's self like that, it was something that he could sort of feel like the air, it was just…it was just there and he was here and-and-and-

-and that guy had a lot of scars.

He had challenged Dad a bunch of times and each time he lost. Dad had beaten him, which meant that he could be beaten, which meant that Sho stood a chance! Sho was Dad's son whether he liked it or not. That meant that he was almost as powerful as Dad and…and Big Sis didn't have his blood so…so he was the most powerful Suzuki, wasn't he? He was!

And that meant that he could win.

"A mass of gravity, huh? Pretty cool, but you know what would be cooler? If all of that gravity went backwards!" said Sho as he tried his best to grab the black orb and turn it inside out. He didn't know if it would work, he had never tried this before, but if it did then everyone would get squished like bugs. There was so much junk up there in the sky already…he had to do this! He focused on the gravity, no, on the energy around him. The way it flowed upward…he tried to make it flow the other way, like all the times he'd made the water swirl the other way when he was in the southern hemisphere, he focused everything he had left on moving that energy the other way!

It wasn't enough.

"Disappear! Disappear and let me take my place as the rightful ruler of Claw, no, of the other! I'll be the one to continue President Suzuki's glorious work! No longer will we hide in the shadows! We'll be free to-" shouted Ishiguro

"Will you shut up already? You're making it really hard to concentrate, you know that?" asked Sho as he tried to focus. He tried to…what was it that Dad had said? Gather his powers and….and…he couldn't remember! It had been so long since Dad had taught him anything about how his powers worked. Dad hadn't done much of that since Sho had first Awakened, no, it had always been about Big Sis. It was like he had never even intended for Sho to succeed him and…and maybe he hadn't, because he knew that Sho was always going to be second best, because he knew that Sho wasn't even that when he was around, because he knew that when someone like Big Sis could be born to people who weren't even Suzuki's it meant that Sho was less than…less than gum, the kind of gum that you found on the bottom of your shoe, a disappointment in every way…

He felt himself being lifted off of the ground.

"Disappear! Die! Go to hell! Get out of my way and suffer-" the shouting was suddenly over. Sho felt himself hit the ground. It had ended so fast that he hadn't even had time to fly. He landed face first, dirt getting into his eyes and up his nose. He heard shouting, a lot of it, and then silence…he kept his aura close. He knew who had saved him, probably big sis or Shimazaki, the only two people who cared enough to even help him…the only two people strong enough to be able to help him…

He was second to Shimazaki, too, wasn't he? So that made him the third most powerful esper around…great.

Sho pushed himself up off the ground, his hands cursing him the whole time, that is if hands could curse a person. He'd had enough of curses for one day. He could feel his body trying to push the one in his hand out. Maybe that was why he'd been so weak, or maybe it was because he was out of practice, or maybe because he had never been that powerful in the first place. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in dirt. They looked-

"Those look terrible! Sho, don't move!"

Sho looked up. Fukuda was running right at him. Oh, so he was alright then. His clothes were dirty and ripped up but he was alive, and it looked like Shimazaki hadn't done anything to fuck with him, not that he…Sho felt around with his aura. Shimazaki wasn't there, not anywhere near, and Big Sis didn't feel any closer either…but maybe it was just the curse. He was sure it was the curse, it must have been, because he was sure that he felt-

"That guy was so annoying." Ritsu. He could see Ritsu, he could feel Ritsu, he could hear Ritsu…but what was he doing there?! Didn't he know that it wasn't safe for him? Didn't he know that…no, no, Sho was the one who didn't know. Dad was gone, there wasn't any reason to keep on recruiting, which meant that there wasn't any reason to kidnap anyone else. Including Ritsu. So he was safe. It wasn't like Sho was going to do anything to hurt his boyfriend.

Sho was the one in charge after all.

"Ritsu! Move, Fukuda!" said Sho as he pushed Fukuda out of the way and ran to Ritsu. It was just like something out of those movies that Big Sis liked, the kind where people fell in love and ran to each other at airports or boat ports or bus ports or any other places where people were about to separate forever. So it was different, then, since he had no plans of ever separating from Ritsu again! Ever!

Dad was gone. Sho could spend as much time with his boyfriend as he wanted to, now.

"Sho!" said Ritsu as Sho practically jumped into his arms. Sho didn't think about the weirdness of the fact that Big Sis was adopted, that he was the one in charge, that Big Sis had stolen his pants and was acting kind of mean, that there were so many dead people around, that he had no idea where Mukai was, that his Dad was probably being dissected or something, or even that he was in horrible pain. All that mattered was being with Ritsu.

And the kissing, too, there was no way that he could forget the kissing part.

"I missed you so much!" said Sho before he kissed Ritsu, quickly, because the quicker he kissed him the quicker he could kiss him again!

"I missed you too." said Ritsu before he kissed Sho. The only thing better than kissing someone was being kissed by them!

"I missed you the most!" said Sho before he kissed him again. The only thing better than kissing someone was being kissed by them and the only thing better than being kissed by someone was kissing someone in the shadow of the evil looking building your Dad had built! This was almost as good as kissing him in front of Dad, but not in a creepy way, just to rub it in his face. Just to show Dad that he wasn't the boss of Sho. Just to make him eat his words and suffer and stuff like that! There was nothing better, would have been nothing better, than making out with Ritsu right in front of Dad just to make him suffer!

Making out in front of Fukuda, though, was just wrong in all way.

"Sho, we need to get out of…we need to talk. So can you just take a-a break from your friend there and come with me?" asked Fukuda as he stood way too close…well, he kind of had to. Sho could feel the pain in his hands fading away. Even the curse felt like it was dispelling, which was good, even though Fukuda was WAY TOO CLOSE!

"Later, now go away." Said Sho as he waved Fukuda off.

"Sho, I don't think that you realize how precarious our situation is. We need-" said Fukuda

"Either stay and watch us make out or go to the loading dock and fix the sick people. Your choice." Said Sho before he got back to kissing Ritsu like he'd never kissed anyone before, but also like he was good at it because he totally was. He could do this whenever he wanted to, now. He could do whatever he wanted to now. He didn't have to worry about Dad, about getting hurt, about what he'd do to other people…about how bad he'd make Sho feel. He was the one in charge even if Dad had probably never intended it. Even if Dad had never once believed in him. None of that mattered now. Dad was gone, captured by the government, and Sho was still here. Sho was the Suzuki in charge now…

He was in charge and he liked it.