Saiki woke up feeling much more refreshed than yesterday but dreaded the prospect of going back to school. He had stopped 2 disasters and thus time now flowed forward. Even though the rest of his life before had progressed as normal, there was a strange sense of unease now. He had gotten used to being around the same people doing the same thing. He didn't like it or dislike it, it just was.

He realized that he had liked troublesome things more than he was willing to admit, but in a year his entire life would change. He could put everyone back in a loop whenever he wished, but he had already played god more times than he was comfortable with.

"Ku-chan! Breakfast is ready!"

He was interrupted by the cheerful summons of his mother. It was a blessing in disguise because he had already thought enough. He had turned over a new leaf so he would hold himself to that. He quickly ate, said goodbye, and set course toward trouble, barely missing his father's routine request to teleport him to work. His walk toward school as peacefully as it could have. He reached the school gates without incident and then tuned in to gain situational awareness of his classmates.

He needed to figure out where the threat that had higher priority than even Nendou was so he could form a plan of attack.

"I wonder if Saiki-kun will be here today?" he heard at her desk.

Saiki grimaced, headed up to the classroom, and sat down without issue save the girl next to him who had not become aware of his presence until he sat down. He was as low profile as ever it seemed.

"H-h-hey, Saiki-kun. It's uh, good to see you today…"

As usual, her face remained serene and focused. He heard plenty of people's annoying thoughts, but only 3 others knew about his powers. One of them was asking for favors on some scheme to sexually harass all of the women that would even look in his direction, one's mind was caged with no means of release forever doomed to roam only within the confines of his desk jumping from subject to subject much akin to the labor of Sisyphus, and one was constantly switching between attempting to divine the course of inane events and trying to get Saiki's attention.

This tonal shift was not bad as she had done a better job respecting his boundaries than the other 3 combined with her first words. That said, he needed to tell her that what happened yesterday would not happen again.

Look, Teruhashi, I said a lot of things yesterday that I never thought I would say. I would appreciate it if we didn't bring it up or do it again.

"O-o-oh, ok…"

He saw her lower lip tremble, but the rest of her face still remained as demure as always. Her tone was girt with genuine regret and sadness. He had done it again, trampling on someone else's thoughts for his own self-interest even if they were once the most self-aggrandizing thoughts he had ever heard. He realized he had just put her down without a second thought though his own foolish pride was no different. He thought about how she had accidentally insulted him back at his house when his mother was trying to defuse the situation. Instead of "psychic powers" she pretended she had heard "cowardice." She was modest about it when they were talking yesterday, but she was certainly psychic about a lot more things than she had given herself credit for. Troublesome words reverberated in his head.

I AM selfish.

How had she changed so much when he had changed so little in comparison? Surely she had something buried deep within her that he could not read, thoughts in her subconscious that had become interwoven so tightly into her psyche that she never needed to express in words? Something that told her that he was another tool in her toolbox for world domination? He had done it again. He already established that he didn't understand the true depths of the human heart. He had only caused her trouble over the last few days: first with the powers, the rebuff he had made earlier, and insulting her behind her back. He even had the gall to assume that he was doing her a favor by talking to her yesterday. She had shown him nothing but genuineness and what he believed to be compassion. He thanked her by crushing her bravery into a million pieces. He had never been in this much debt before; it was only right that he pay it back.

Teruhashi…

Her face jerked in surprise.

"Y-y-yes Saiki-kun?"

F-forget what I said earlier.

This is probably as close as he was going to get to saying sorry to someone other than his mother. He hoped it was acceptable. Her thoughts became filled with shock and then switched to concern shortly afterward.

"What does this mean? How am I supposed to react to this?"

Her thoughts whipped into cascading waves of conflicting ideas and emotions not unlike Akechi's day-to-day. Her mind was like a roaring typhoon, completely unable to be controlled or deciphered. She forgot he was reading her thoughts which was understandable given the sudden change of heart. He added that to the list of his debts.

Meet me during lunch, Teruhashi.

Again, another visceral reaction. He had pushed her way too far.

"S-S-Sure…"

The typhoon picked up the pace so much that it could have caused the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor meltdown, which was not too dissimilar to what was actually happening to her right now. He was not looking forward to this. The rest of the time until lunch passed slowly for Saiki. Perhaps it was a good thing this had happened first thing in the morning, as Teruhashi seemed emotionally exhausted by the time lunch rolled around. Now for the plan. First things first, since Teruhashi's fan club would be watching her every move, he needed to find a way to get rid of them. He also needed to distract all the other students to guarantee no foul-ups. Then there was the problem of those 3.

For the first effort, he could cast hypnosis on Aiura to make her appear as Teruhashi and vice versa. He would even go the extra mile by giving Aiura the gyaru makeover Teruhashi had given herself when trying to impress him. This would not only distract her but Toritsuka as well because Toritsuka was still starstruck by having THE Kokomi Teruhashi in his class. Obviously, the fan club would follow "Teruhashi" around so that would take care of them too. He also needed to use hypnosis on Aiura herself so that the "Offu, Teruhashi-san" turned into "Hey, Aiura-san." He hoped Aiura would revel in the popularity for long enough for him to get back. He likely would fill them in on the details after depending on how it went.

For the students, he implanted thoughts into Saiko that made him think that serving the entire school a first class dining experience was the way to make the rest of the school aware of their peasantry. Saiki did this first so that Saiko would have time to call his entourage to prepare the meal. Saiko had become softer, but that exploitable weakness still remained. Saiki needed that softness for his next part anyhow. The core nuisances would also badger him to sit at the table with them. He decided to remedy this by also hyping up Saiko's gratitude toward being part of their friend group so that they would be whisked away to the head table right as the bell rang. Saiki would of course be stationed in the bathroom right before class ended.

The last remaining nuisance was Akechi. He would not be swayed by Teruhashi nor the prospect of first class food as soon as he sniffed out that something was going on. Saiki would have to be careful about this because Akechi would know if he brazenly used his powers. Perhaps it was enough though if he couldn't figure out what was going on even if he knew something was happening. This one was also a tough nut to crack. Eventually he just decided to tell Akechi that something was happening without specifics due to his general lack of concern for things that didn't interest him and the fact he would figure out something was up immediately when Teruhashi started to act exactly like Aiura. He would likely figure out what was going on but hopefully he had changed enough to not think too much of it. He had held onto Saiki's secret well especially considering his blabbermouth nature so Saiki decided to give him a pass.

He decided that the roof would be a fine place to go given the commotion everywhere else. He relayed to Teruhashi that she should go to the bathroom at the bell to switch places with Aiura and then immediately head up to the roof after she had waited a bit in the bathroom. She didn't seem to care about the tarnishing of her image at all which amused him. This would work very well because Aiura was not as close with Saiko as the other people in the core group, so it was unlikely she would get caught like the others.

He had been trickling in the sound of gentle waterfalls into Aiura's mind for about an hour now so that she would have to go to the bathroom. His plan worked splendidly, even down to being able to avoid the commotion of breaks in between classes due to his focus on planning. Aiura earnestly went to tidy up right as the last bell rang.

"Ready?"

Ready.

Aiura (Teruhashi) emerged from the bathroom with a bit more grace in her step than her subject, but passed by much less eventfully than if she had come out herself. Saiki heard her step out without incident, but hurried out as a chorus of offus erupted due to Teruhashi's (Aiura's) emergence.

"Hey, Teruhashi (Aiura)-san! You really pull off that gyaru look!"

"Aww, like thanks man!"

Aiura did not catch what was going on as she was being swarmed by many more men than she was used to. The purple parasite was planning to cajole her with his possession ability, but luckily he was prevented from entering the crowd around Aiura with a little psychic intervention.

Saiki hurried up the nearest staircase he could find to the roof where he found Teruhashi waiting for him. She didn't say a word and looked down to the side wistfully. Saiki grimaced, touched her shoulder, and cast teleportation.
_

Teruhashi found herself once again in the first place Saiki had teleported her to when she had discovered his powers. She believed he called it his training grounds. She took the impact much less hard this time, stepping out onto the dirt as if it had been on the roof where she was a second ago and turned around to face the source of all her troubles recently. For the very first time, his nerves took physical expression; he shifted his feet uncomfortably as his eyes maintained their tight grimace. She would let him speak first, so she merely watched him carefully. After what seemed like an eternity he finally spoke.

"I realized that I put you through so much in the past few days, and… You stayed true to yourself while my resolve crumbled into dust. You bravely came to me to try to make things right…", he trailed off.

The dam had finally breached.

Teruhashi furiously stormed up to the pink nuisance, stabbed her finger under his chin, and exclaimed, "You think!? You dumbass, you've caused me more stress in the past few days than the past few years of my life!" as if she were scolding a child.

Teruhashi's eyes widened as she placed her hand over her mouth and took hurried steps backward. Saiki's eyes flashed but then softened until his eyelids were closed. She could have sworn she saw a smirk but it was so small it could have just been his lips twitching.

"So what do you want?" Saiki may have many powers, but negotiation was certainly not one of them.

"What?" she replied as an irascible server would with difficult customers.

"I've wronged you, what do you want?" he said derisively as he crossed his arms and hardened his brow to a testy scowl.

"Uggghh you are so annoying! What, do you want to draw up a contract?" she said, huffing a loud sigh, throwing up her hands, and rolling her eyes

"I wronged you, you get something from me. Plain and simple." He seemed not to understand that saying the same thing three times would not yield better results, but she appreciated the direct approach.

"Fine. I'll indulge you. I want you to…"

She thought about it for a while, placing her finger on her lip pensively. A lightbulb suddenly went off.

"... meet up with me alone. Don't bring the brat this time."

His eyes widened a bit but a mischievous smirk quickly replaced it.

"Fine. Challenge accepted."

"Oh and also since we have around 35 minutes, you are going to sit right here and entertain me until it's time to go back," she commanded.

"As you wish," he replied. His tone did not change, but it didn't take a genius to know that he was mocking her.

She giggled. "Whoops, that side of me came out again. I can't help but get really bossy when I get like that. It feels so liberating to finally be able to talk down to you," she taunted. She found a rock to sit down on and swung her legs like she hadn't a care in the world. Saiki also found a suitable rock but sat up with his arms and legs crossed.

"Don't push it. I'm only doing this to repay my debt," Saiki replied with a scowl.

"Oh and what was all that about bravery and whatnot, are you sure you didn't have an iota of respect for someone as great as me?" she teased coyly, flipping her hair with a quick flourish of the back of her hand.

"I always respected you. How did you not get that from our conversation yesterday?" he replied, cocking am eyebrow at her.

"Could have fooled me," she huffed, puffing out air and sagging her head further down her shoulders.

"Even if your true personality is ugly, mine is certainly no better. I always admired your dedication to the perfect pretty girl act. You never backed down in the face of ultimate adversity. I gained a lot of respect for you when you were the only one to eat the ramen from that filthy ramen shop." She learned to hang on to every word as he delivered statements like the previous as if he were reading a grocery list. Her heart fluttered, but she couldn't resist the urge to jab him one last time.

"Saiki-kun giving compliments, to what do I owe the pleasure? What, do you plan on ending the world tomorrow so one will live to see you stoop so low?" she prodded him with a sardonic side-eye.

He scowled at her again, but subsequently shook his head and smirked. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but this smirk was different from the others.

"Don't push me, I just might."

She felt a feeling of elation wash over her as she laid back on the rock. She couldn't help but smile like an idiot at the fact that he had actually made a joke in her presence. She couldn't see his face after reading her mind but she really didn't care about it right now. She hoped this friendship would last.

"First of all we're not friends. Second of all, fat chance."

"Oh, screw off!" She laughed harder than she had in a very long time. "You know you can't escape me, so why are you even trying? God still loves me, you know."

"You're a nuisance. All nuisances deserve to be purged."

"Then go ahead and do it, mister scary psychic, bet you won't," she challenged as she looked up at him with a glint in her eye.

"God loves you so I can't just go and delete you. It's a contract between gods type deal. You wouldn't understand." She could have sworn that she heard amusement in his voice; but she had bigger things to worry about, nagging questions that had forced their way into her mind in her time alone.

"Excuses, excuses. Ok, well I think that's enough ribbing for now, I have other questions I need answered. Why did your eyes light up when I asked about being normal? It was easy enough to figure out,"

"It wasn't because you got it, it was because you got it so quickly. It makes sense when you have a cheat ability in the same league as mine though."

She considered his response briefly. "Why does getting it faster matter?"

"Everyone always tells me that I could use my powers for this and that, good and evil, pick your favorite descriptor. To this day even Toritsuka and Aiura hold the belief that I should use my powers for degenerate or productive purposes, respectively. Someone with an innate understanding of it is not what I expected."

"I… I see," she said as her eyes fell. She chewed on that thought. She certainly was able to change the course of events around her, but no one had ever told her how to use her powers because they assumed that she was perfect.

"Well, how about this: whenever you pay your debt I will not ask for anything related to your powers. I will make the plans to work without your powers and minimize the effect of mine. I mean, I am the most perfect pretty girl after all. Deal?" She offered, turning the contract over to him for review. She sat up briefly to listen to his answer intently.

"Deal," Saiki assented.

She saw another mischievous smirk but this one stuck around a lot longer than the others.

"You know, you're really fun to talk to even as your true personality; especially as your true personality. I already know what you're thinking, 'ShE HaSn'T SeEn My TrUe PerSonAlIty YeT.' I can still tell you're holding back but we'll fix that soon enough."

Saiki grunted, paused, and then sighed.

After that an unspoken contract was drawn up to enjoy the nice day in silence. She felt the wind blow calmly through her hair as she closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh air. This would have been a great opportunity for a photo op.

"It's about time to go back. 35 minutes is almost up."

Teruhashi sighed and got off of her rock.

"Guess it's showtime," she mused with great melancholy, aging 10 years at the thought of returning to school.

Saiki nodded and in an instant they disappeared from the wasteland.