A/N: Vore warning for this chapter, I guess? Someone is put halfway into a mouth, but not swallowed.
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The man knocked Mob back with a sweep of his grabbed arm. Mob went skidding backwards down the path, and Ritsu inhaled sharply, his call high and half-choked.
"Nii-san!"
The man glanced between the two. Then, he grinned, and snatched Ritsu under his arm instead, placing both feet each edge of the path as Mob rose from the ground.
"So, it was the younger one who's caused all the problems that drew our attention! Not you!" he decided. "I didn't know you both had psychic powers. I should have noticed by now! You haven't changed one bit."
He leaned forward, just enough for the tip of his nose to graze the light.
"You're the one that's interesting."
Wild blue lights shimmered around Mob. The coldest look ever imagined graced the entirety of his moon-like face: his eyes terrible dark craters that matched the desolation of his mood.
He held out his arm, and asked again.
"Let my brother go."
Given half a chance, the man may have scoffed and dropped Ritsu right on his side, just for the fun of hearing him cry out and wither on the ground again. However, perhaps not learning from their previous encounter, his cockiness made him foolish, and he gave Mob the moment he needed to react.
Mob ripped Ritsu and the man apart. Ritsu hit the grassy area next to the path with a soft thud, while the man made a straight shot into the old graveyard maple tree. His head smashed into the trunk, and his body floundered limply. The release of such hostile psychic energy was enough to wake at least one of the spirits in the graveyard, but it did not matter to Mob that she went to investigate the man with distaste. What mattered was Ritsu, and the thought of being horrifying to him again soothed Mob's powers, so that when he reached him the light had disappeared totally.
"Ritsu! How badly did he hurt you?"
Ritsu struggled to decide how hurt he really was and turn over. His face was bashed up and his clothes sullied, but otherwise he seemed okay. He spat more dirt out of his mouth and forced himself upright, the movement causing a painful quirk in his twisted neck.
"Nii-san—No, I think I'm fine."
The woman spirit shrieked abruptly. Before she could warn Mob and Ritsu, the man had zipped back from the tree and grappled Mob by the face. His hood was off now, and both Mob and Ritsu could see his enraged expression: his beetle-like eyes, the long scar down his face, and the teeth that snarled in his mouth. Mob's powers ignited in a sudden fighting response, but this time the man was quicker, and he launched Mob into the air with an expert kick, leaving him winded and disarrayed.
"You need to stop causing me so much trouble!"
The man followed Mob into the air. Not having much else to hit him through, the man threw Mob towards the ground, sending him through the shrine roof and earth below.
.
Reigen did not see it. Reigen did not hear it. He felt it.
It was like the planet were lurched sideways—like a pachinko ball had been released from his heart and rolled down the rivets of his ribs to land coldly in his stomach. Reigen gripped the sides of the bathtub, and he half-expected to see a silver line of mercury running the length of his sternum when he looked down. Instead, he was met with only his diluted reflection in the water, his cheeks flushed although he did not feel feverish or embarrassed. Reigen sighed at his skittishness and relinquished his hold on the tub, left to wonder what the sensation had been and why he felt so odd.
.
Seal him. Seal him so he won't get out.
Prayer beads. Prayer beads and long robes, long robes going to—
He will never be free.
He could be, when fate decides a hero has come.
Or a villain.
Mob opened his eyes to the hot, blue sky. A jagged frame of broken pieces of earth and rock gave it a strange shape, and a strange mood as he lay there, amongst broke shards of… something. He thought to sit up, but a painful weight in his chest made him stop, and he had to cough air back into his lungs. Far too close for comfort, something slammed into the side of the hole, bits of rock showering from above. Someone who must have been the man made a strangling sound like he could not breathe.
"Oh, this is bad! This is very bad!"
That was not the man—but Serizawa. An evil hissing noise echoed from every part of the chamber, and Mob had to balance on his hands to look up: to see Serizawa, and what was so terrible.
It was like a snake with many heads—no, not many heads. Many faces. Faces that changed into horrific, grotesque things, like dead mothers and demons. It had its long and dark body wrapped around the man, who swore and pounded at its coiled body to no avail. Serizawa, however, had a hold around the base of what must have been its head like a mongoose preparing to break a cobra's neck. The thing hissed and beat its head around fitfully, trying with everything it had to rid its neck of Serizawa. It slammed into the wall again, and more dirt fell from the crumbling edges of the hole.
The thing twisted again, and Serizawa tumbled to the ground. He had no physical body, so he could not really be injured, but his form flickered, and the orange orb around his heart burned red. The thing struck at him with a face that had fangs, yet not fast enough to catch him before he disappeared into the ground. Not wasting a moment, the thing whipped back, taking the man into its large mouth.
Mob almost thought he was going to vomit as the noises stopped and the muscles around the thing's neck contracted. Although, when they did, it did not seem like the man himself was swallowed—rather, the red-brown aura of his powers ran towards the thing's center. It took only the briefest second, and then the thing pulled back: the man limp in its coils, but not eaten and not dead. No longer of any concern, the thing released the man from its hold. It slithered to its full height and now turned to Mob, it's face like that of a man with no eyes.
Foolish.
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Mrs. Kageyama dried a dish with a cloth and tilted her head.
"What do you think Ritsu will want for dinner?"
Mr. Kageyama turned a page in his newspaper.
"Curry, maybe? We haven't had curry and rice for a while."
A silence fell. And in the silence, the dish slipped from Mrs. Kageyama's hands and shattered in the sink, like the heart that suddenly fell from her chest. She turned to her husband with a look of unbelievable horror, which he mirrored, and all they could do was stare for the longest time.
For reasons unknown to them, the memories of someone small and pale and very much theirs came to them. They remembered when he was his smallest—newborn in his blue blanket with a face like the full moon and lashes so dark they were like ink marks; they remember him afterwards, eating and playing and growing, and so fascinated when they came home with someone who was smaller. They remembered how one night they had tucked him into bed, and how in the morning he was gone, and how they had not questioned it—not even once. Not until now.
"… Oh my god." Mrs. Kageyama covered her mouth, and tears filled her eyes. "Oh my god… Our baby."
"Shigeo."
