A/N: Now that midterms are over...
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Serizawa: noble Serizawa.
When Reigen dove headfirst into the hole, he had the mind to save him first, and panic after. He used his telekinesis to lighten Reigen's landing, then went to yelling at him as he ran right for the thing with Mob in its mouth. Reigen rived Mob away from the thing with all his strength, and Ritsu shivered and bit back the bitter taste in his mouth as slime dripped from Mob and the thing withered lamely to the ground. Ritsu and Serizawa heard Reigen speak, and saw Mob move weakly—the action earning a pause of relief from all in the vicinity. Mob said something quietly, and Reigen gripped him even closer, despite the painful strain in his shoulders and the goop sliding down his arms.
He was okay, at least for the moment.
Only, the thing found the motivation to pull itself upright. Serizawa also had the instinct to instantly know they were in trouble again, and he pushed off the edge into the hole. He landed along the side and Ritsu made to duck back before the thing lifted up and slithered forward, its now bug-like eyes searing into Mob and Reigen with the utmost anger. Serizawa lurched forward to meet the thing moving with malice, until:
"Stop!"
To everyone's surprise, the thing did stop.
Serizawa froze as well, boxed in half by confusion and half by the word itself. Reigen cleared his throat—the command maybe a little to brave for how he actually felt—and stood up straighter although the weight of Mob leaned him a little to one side. He stared into the thing's eyes with a steely determination that awed Serizawa.
And Mob, who blinked at Reigen like he was the very sun.
"You are going after children."
The thing tilted its head to the side. Reigen almost faltered under the image of childlike innocence played out by something so horrendous, but cleared his throat again, and spoke to make his point.
"You are fighting a literal child." Reigen glanced briefly down at the limp boy in his arms. "Look—I assume you were trapped by the shrine for a long time, and I know how terrible that must have been, but that's no excuse to threaten a child!"
Mob gazed between the thing and Reigen. He could feel Reigen struggling under him, but his voice did not reflect this, and his words echoed so that even Ritsu could hear them clearly.
"You already took all the fight out of him! And you're still coming after him while he's weak!"
The thing did not seem to make an expression. It lowed its head so its eyes would be level with Reigen's, the look of them now like red and cat-like.
I am an evil spirit. I need his power to grow stronger. You have nothing to give me.
The voice came out of everywhere, more like a twist of wind in Reigen's ear than human speech. Reigen may have wanted to let his face fall as he quickly realized his wisdom meant nothing to the thing so consumed by its own fantasies, but instead his mouth set into a hard line. His eyes did not drop.
His voice was darker than Mob had ever heard.
"You are not as like them as you think. Otherwise, I would not have been able to stop you with a single word."
The thing released a loud hiss, proven wrong for a second time that day. Its face changed into something like a real snake, with poisoned teeth and a jaw that hung to show the hollow dark of its insides. It whipped forward, and Serizawa was nearly as quick, reaching Reigen and Mob seconds before the thing did, right as Mob held out his hand and—
The thing crashed into an energy barrier. Its crushed face shattered into something blank and unidentifiable, and it jerked back with a high shriek of pain. His momentum already fulfilled, Serizawa stood to Reigen's immediate side, and he caught his look of disbelief as Mob slipped lightly from his hold and stood before them without even the slightest memory of his previous weakness. Neither could see his face, but they could see his powers all about him, like a pair of blue and gold bird wings. The thing thwacked its tail against the barrier, and it did not shudder—nor did Mob. He simply held up his other hand.
"I'm tired of ending things with violence."
Mob walked forward, and Reigen would not realize until much later that he could have stopped him: that he could have taken Mob's shoulder and insisted that maybe it would be better to run away, that he was a child and it was not his responsibility to defeat the evil of the world. Rather, now, in the short moment of Mob stepping towards the thing ready to swallow him and nothing making sense for reasons Reigen could not hope to fathom, he watched Mob take the thing by the jaw and lower it until their eyes met and the thing stopped moving.
And Reigen was reminded of the night they first met.
Reigen was reminded of the tiny boy so sweet he would never understand why the universe was so cruel to him: why it forced him to look through graveyard fences when he wished so desperately to know what was on the inside and why there was a gate to separate the lawn into two parts in the first place. Reigen remembered his little ghostly laugh, from when Mob figured it did not matter much why and he would know someday. And Reigen remembered how that had all changed, how he had watched Mob throughout his years walk through the many doorways of life and learn much of what it meant to be himself in a world of so many perceptions and emotions that at in the end Reigen could not be of any service to him. Mob's experiences were his own, and he had to find the keys to doors himself.
Reigen had to tear his gaze away from Mob staring into the thing's eyes, although it hurt him ever so. Tears constricted his throat, from joy or sadness he didn't know.
Mob had changed. He had grown up.
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"It's time to go."
The white room flickered. Mogami released a low hiss, backed in the corner like he was prepared to fight for his life. Mob did not advance, but he also did not falter, and that left Mogami as the only frightened one in the room of his own creation. This knowledge caused Mogami's powers to lash out—red whips flailing against the blue shimmer around Mob. When he realized they did nothing, he hissed again and spoke his defiance.
"I won't."
Mob did not become harsh. Instead, he lowered his powers, until his hair settled to his head and no light changed the look of his eyes.
"Do you want to stay in this room forever? Is that what you planned?"
Mogami's gaze did not soften, but a shadow of question colored his eyes, and maybe that could turn to softness with enough prompting. Mob held the hem of his shirt in his fingers, suddenly shy in the wake of everything.
"I feel… like you have already experienced the greatest loss you ever will," Mob said gently. "That you have trouble moving on, or something like that. You continue existing just for the sake of doing so, and you shouldn't want that. You shouldn't keep yourself trapped here."
A memory, a phrase:
"This world is for the living. It is not for the dead."
Mogami's eyebrows relaxed from their pinched expression. He uncurled from the corner slowly, sitting up much like he had when Mob first saw him. His hands rested on his legs, and he looked pensive, like he really was considering what Mob said. Like he was trying to decide if the hope was worth it.
"So what you are saying…" he said, his words low and secretive like river currents. "Is that I should move on?"
"It may be best," Mob replied with such natural kindness that there was no doubt. "Open another doorway. Give yourself a better chance at being able to change."
Perhaps. Mogami frowned, then sighed, remembering some of what it had been like to breathe—to live—and how he did nothing like that now. He stared at his hands and paused for a long moment, waiting for exactly the right time and place.
"It would be a risk… But I suppose it is time."
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Reigen was glad he looked away, for the light nearly blinded him.
The thing exploded into thousands of crystal-like lights—something like the wild burst of an exorcism, although very much unlike it. Mob raised his hands from their position around the once-face as the orbs moved as one, ascending into the sky like bubbles in the sunlight. His mouth parted, in mesmerized awe, and he watched until the orbs disappeared into the clouds and the show of lights no longer reflected in his eyes. No part of him moved, and he may have remained like that forever, if:
Reigen, contrastingly, had one concern.
"Mob!"
Mob blinked awake from the image. Whatever lingering prickle of fear or misunderstanding he had disappeared, and he moved to turn around just as Reigen crashed into his body, his arms enveloping his entire head in near suffocation.
"What did you do?" Reigen cried—maybe not the best way to greet Mob, but it was what first came to mind.
"I… asked him to leave," Mob said in the short span of one taken breath.
"Just like that?" Serizawa asked from slightly behind. "You asked him to leave, and he did?"
"Well— "
"I was so worried," Reigen did not mean to interrupt, but his squeezing caused Mob to choke on his words. "I felt the house shake, and I ran over here to find you in danger, and all I could think to do was—I mean, I wanted to help, and I wanted to tell you sooner, but now is high time I told you I'm not— "
"Shishou." In the span of his rant, Mob managed to wiggle his mouth out of Reigen's bicep. "You did a lot. You stopped him in your own way, and that helped me realize how to do what is right. You are a good person. That is better than having psychic powers… Tome-san told me a long time ago."
Reigen flushed brightly at the knowledge that Mob knew he was not a psychic for years and still played along with it. (Why didn't he realize his grandmother would have said something about it earlier?). "Oh, right… I— "
"Nii-san?"
Mob jolted his head upwards. Ritsu poked his head over the edge: still frightened, but also relieved. A new emotion flared in Mob.
"Ritsu!"
Reigen yelped as Mob floated them both to the surface, releasing him as soon as they touched the ground. Mob rushed towards Ritsu, who was a little taken aback by how quickly he moved, but forgot all of that as soon as his brother held him close. The reality of that—of them both being safe, of being able to hug—got to him, and fresh tears lingered in his eyes.
It was hard to believe how jealous he had been.
"Nii-san…" Ritsu repeated, a noticeable strain in his voice. "I'm so glad you're okay! I thought the man, then the snake, that they were— "
"I'm fine, Ritsu," Mob soothed his little brother, and that allowed time for Ritsu's tears to start to fall. "It's not your fault. It was my job to do something."
Ritsu shut his eyes, knowing little of how Mob felt in his responsibility as the older brother. He simply gripped Mob tighter, the tears and blood and dirt and saliva uncared for on Mob's shoulder.
"I love you, Nii-san."
Mob went as still as any could be, struck by the intensity and heart Ritsu openly gave him in his words. Mob's insides grew warm, and he felt the full force of the emotion waiting to come forth.
Acceptance.
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The boy with red hair stood on the roof of the house.
He grinned as the two boys with dark hair embraced, and the spirit and older man jumped back as pink colors shimmered around the two. The recovery of the unconscious man from the hole had gone unnoticed, and he grinned wider, the slice of teeth the only thing left as he faded away with the man, much like a Cheshire Cat.
He was sure he would be seeing those two again.
