A/N: The Inugawa VS Inukawa debate got me like
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Mob remembered, once, watching a video in elementary school about sea life. He remembered sitting there with his classmates when the part about the cuttlefish came on. He remembered how the cuttlefish darted at the crab near the camera lens, and how in graphic proximity he saw the tentacles snatch and the mouth devour the creature. He had wondered if the cuttlefish were any bigger or he any smaller if it would do that to him: wrap him in tentacles and eat him.
The thing did something like that.
Mob had the sensation that he was in dark water, with wet limbs raking at his body. He fought to pull back, but their hold was strong, and Mob had no choice but to go forward. He could not even see the light from bursts of his reacting psychic powers, and that was the most frightening thing. He could feel the very essence of them trying to be stripped from his innermost being and could do nothing to stop it.
Until he was jerked forward another centimeter. Bright white blinded his vision, and he tumbled out of wherever he was, onto a hard floor and followed by a string of goop. The tight feeling from being compressed caused Mob to cough violently, and he lifted himself onto his knees and away from the puddle of slime pooling around him. He looked up before it would make him sick.
The room looked like it was almost made of white plastic, with shadows in odd places and the corners like the seams on bleach bottles. It had no ceiling to speak of, and no light source to explain the white.
There was just a man, sitting cross-legged and leaning on his elbow.
He stared at Mob without the slightest indication of self-consciousness. He looked very young and very tired, with bags under his eyes like he spent too much time at night stressing over the coming day. He had dark hair, and a dark indigo robe, similar to what a government official would wear in past times.
"How interesting."
He spoke but two words, in a rough and drained voice. He stood with ghostly fluidity and approached Mob, leaning down to look at his face closer. He reached out to touch his forehead, and Mob shuddered back in response. The man blinked, then scowled, the sound like a hiss. Mob shivered.
"There's no need for that. It's not like I'm going to kill you," he said as if it justified anything. "Now, keep still."
He tried again, and again Mob jerked away. The man's eyebrows furrowed, and he grasped Mob's chin this time, a red glow humming about his body. Mob twisted in his hold as the man covered his face with his other hand, the red aura hot against his skin. Mob clutched at his wrists to pull them away to no avail, his fingernails clawing into his skin, but the man not bothered by the pain at all. A spasm of Mob's powers lashed out, and finally they man pulled away, sitting on his haunches as Mob skittered back, almost slipping in the puddle of slime in his retreat.
The man tilted his head and pointed out his finger. "Somehow, you have a lock on your psychic powers. Something is keeping them in."
He did not expound. Mob could only stare until his heart stopped fluttering, and even then it did not stop completely. He had to muster some courage to pull himself up and speak without his words being a whisper.
"Who are you?"
The man touched his fingers to the liquid. "An evil spirit."
He did not look like an evil spirit. Mob opened his mouth, but closed it and shook his head, not speaking that observation in the end.
"No, I did not ask what you are… I asked who you are."
The man narrowed his eyes in suspicion, or perhaps in warning. He lifted his fingers from the puddle to rest his arm sidelong on his knee.
"It's not important," he replied. "You wouldn't know, anyway."
A beat. A memory of a conversation. Then:
"Are you Keiji Mogami?"
Suddenly, his expression of mild interest morphed into an absolutely wrathful visage. He shot upright, much like a striking snake, and stalked towards Mob: a cobra with its hood opened.
"So you do know," he practically accused while glowering over Mob, who wanted to shrink under such hostility, but held firm. "I thought I would be forgotten by now."
Spirits experience long periods of existence, and little did Mogami—who was once human—know that their memories lasted just as long. He bowed over and grasped Mob's shoulders, and Mob choked as he squeezed near his throat.
"Stop protecting your powers. Or, I can force them out of you. It makes no difference to me."
Mob tried withering out of his grip, but he held steady, and clutched harder as he struggled, like a bird caught by a boa constructor. Mob felt his collar bone ache as Mogami's fingers pressed into his flesh, and his breathing came in short, fearful chirps. Yet, he managed to speak a single word.
"Why?"
Mogami gave Mob a look of disgust of having to excuse something so simple to someone so naïve. He tsked like he wanted to spit. His grip tightened.
"I'm an evil spirit. I need your powers to grow stronger."
Why did he keep saying that? It was like he had to assure himself that it was something he really was, or convince Mob that he would not hold sympathies. He wanted Mob's powers for reasons the boy could not understand, and that created new fear that motivated Mob to fight against the vice grip again. The look of rage returned, and Mogami lurched Mob up by the shoulders towards his face.
"I've seen you use them," he growled. "You're not doing anything trying to fight me like this."
Mob stared into his eyes. They were much like Reigen's in they were dark brown and seemed easy to change with the light. Only, instead of kindness they held anger, and old sorrow: some wound he had not sorted out with himself quite yet. They did not soften, not even for a moment, but maybe used to and held the memory of so, from long ago when he did not have to think he was an evil spirit.
Mob knew.
"Oh…" he said with such softness that Mogami flinched. "I see. You made this room. You locked the door yourself."
There was not a hesitation: not a moment for his heart to feel the words. Mogami slammed Mob back onto the ground and clenched his fingers around his windpipe. Mob's last bit of air came out as a cry, and Mogami squeezed harder—squeezed until Mob could not speak. He wrung and shook his neck without even the thought of restraint, Mob's head smacking against the floor and tears jostled from his eyes.
"Let your powers out!" Mogami shouted in the empty echo of the room. "Do it!"
His head hurt, and he could not breathe, and his eyes would not see right, but Mob knew the innermost part where his powers came from, and he kept his hold on them despite the demands. It was the last thing he could do, he realized. All he had was his will to change, to not be violent, and that included not letting another do what they wished with what he had.
His psychic powers were his responsibility. He could not allow them in the hands of those he could not trust.
Yet… it was happening again: he felt himself slipping into blackness, and if he finally let go, he knew all his struggling would be over. In his unconscious state, it would come, like a demonic bird, and cause devastation no one could control. It would lash out with animalistic instincts—a pure need for survival—and destroy everything in its way until it thought it was safe. It had done it before, and that knowledge kept Mob fighting, his mind just above the line of his dark subconscious. He felt the hot conflict of Mogami's aura as it tried to reach into him, searching for the center of his powers while he was weak. Mob tucked them far into himself, hoping with all hopes that he would not find them, that Mogami would not awaken the thing he so desired to meet. Mob heard the man hiss as it still alluded him, his blood-colored psychic powers roaring about him like an inferno.
"Let them out, you idiot child!"
And everything stopped.
Mob was yanked backwards, away from Mogami and through the darkness into the light of the blue sky. He gasped, and his lungs clawed at the air, his eyesight flickering no more and his heartbeat no longer in his throat and feeling returning to his limbs. He felt the slime still on his clothing and the hold around his waist, and how the person pulling him away stumbled backwards under his weight. Mob had no real doubt about who it was, but nevertheless a sense of peace came when he called to him, his head an outline against the sky.
"Mob! Mob, speak to me!"
Reigen looked so worried for him. Mob blinked against the harsh daylight, and he clutched at Reigen's clothing to steady himself, still dizzy from what he had endured. The saliva made his finger's slick, and he almost lost his grip, but determination got the better of him, and that helped his balance to level and breathing to calm. He turned his gaze wholly to the comfort of Reigen's kind brown eyes, and spoke like he asked him to.
"Shishou..."
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Mrs. Kageyama covered her mouth.
"Darling! Here!"
Mr. Kageyama pushed aside the hundreds of other photos. He leaned over his wife's shoulder to see the one she held.
It showed Ritsu as a newborn, on the couch leaning against his older brother. Unlike Ritsu, his features had fixed into something recognizable, with a certain nose shape and round haircut setting his appearance. Mrs. Kageyama almost dropped the photo, she trembled so. She looked to her husband, ready to cry again.
Her voice hardly came out.
"Shigeo… I… I know where he is."
