This is Lotus

This is Saiki

This is Saiki and Lotus

~This is the thoughts of others~

Kaidou's Mother - A Force Stronger Than The Jet Black Wings!

Saiki and Lotus's after school walk home went from a duo to a quartet as today the psychic pair were joined by Nendou and Kaidou.

"Soon this world will become a sea of blood," Kaidou said

"Kaidou's hero complex is in full force today."

"Wonder what happened, he's been extra into his persona today."

"The hour of awakening is fast approaching," Kaidou said

"I wish you'd wake up."

"See you tomorrow, assuming there is a tomorrow."

Kaidou was about to break away from the group but was stopped as a woman rounded the corner.

"Oh hi, Shun baby."

Kaidou let out a startled squeak his back straightening.

The woman smiled looking at Kaidou. "Are you on your way home?"

"What are you doing here Mama?" Kaidou squeaked out in a nervous tone.

The poor boy was bug-eyed sweating profusely.

"Mama?!" Nendou exclaimed

"Are these three your friends? Hello, there I'm Shun's mother."

"Forget about them let's go home!"

"Why is he so nervous?"

Kaidou tried to push his mother forward but the woman didn't budge.

"Where are your manners? Our house is just around the corner don't you want to invite them over?" Mrs. Kaidou questioned

"What?!" Kaidou pointed at Nendou. "Well, this guy is really busy. Really busy, isn't that right-isn't that right Nendou!"

Nendou hummed putting a hand on his chin. "Yeah well, I got a lot to do…."

"~Come on take a hint!~" Kaidou internally pleaded

"...guess it isn't nothing too important." Nendou finished

"~Go away!~"

"How about you two? Would you like to join us?" Mrs. Kaidou questioned looking to Saiki and Lotus.

"I think I'll pass."

"I got some coffee jelly from the neighborhood associations and there's enough for everyone."

Saiki did not have to be told twice as he started walking forward.

"What are you waiting for? Show us the way."

Lotus snickered behind her hand.

"Man the list of things Saiki wouldn't do for coffee jelly must be short."

"And what about you dear?" Mrs. Kaidou asked Lotus.

"Oh, um, I don't have anything and I mean if the others are going to be joining I'd like to come," Lotus said

"Great let's get going." Mrs. Kaidou said

Kaidou's house was rather impressive in size, one could easily tell it held multiple rooms.

"Please come in." Mrs. Kaidou said

"This place is huge!" Nendou exclaimed

Kaidou's room was equally as spacious.

"Here's my Shun baby's room." Mrs. Kaidou said

"It's huge! You can do somersaults on the floor!"

"Yeah but there's no reason to."

Nendou laughed rolling around the large room, like a kid at the playground.

"He's a lively young man, inst he? Wait here baby I'll go make some tea," Mrs. Kaidou said

Kaidou let out a series of nervous laughs, "Great, thank you."

"So runt you like still calls your mother Mama huh?" Nendou mocked

"Can't you let that go?"

"Yeah, I still call my mother Mama."

"It's different when you're a girl."

Lotus blinked, "Huh? Really?"

"Shut up!" Kaidou shouted

"Better than what my mother calls me."

"What me a goody-goody? You couldn't be more mistaken. As a civilian I can't drag her into this, she knows nothing of the Jet Black Wings. As for Mama, I'm using the characters for True and Demon. In my past life…."

"Calm down Shun baby."

Nendou had stopped listening to Kaidou and started snooping around the boy's room. He was currently searching beneath Kaidou's bed pulling various books out from underneath it.

"Ahh! What are you doing?!"

"Looking for porno magazines, duh!" Nendou said

"I don't have any of that garbage!" Kaidou shouted

Saiki and Lotus simply watched the two after they both took a seat at the table in Kaidou's room.

"Oh what's this, it looks suspicious."

Nendou pulled out a book but as he lifted it up a notebook fell out of it.

"Huh? What's this?"

"That's his…"

"Get your grubby hands off that notebook. If you open it I'll never forgive you." Nendou's cheeks were flushed with embarrassment and his voice raised two or three pitches.

"Put that down Nendou, he's not playing."

Lotus stood up from her seat swiping the notebook out of Nendou's hands.

"Hey! I wanted to read that," Nendou said

"Obviously Kaidou doesn't want you to," Lotus spoke handing the notebook over to Kaidou.

Nendou happily and quickly took the notebook hugging it close to himself in a protective embrace.

"Come on what's the big deal," Nendou said

"Delusional people have notebooks that they don't want others to see."

"Nendou this a touchy subject, let the notebook go," Lotus whispered

"Huh? Touchy? I don't get it," Nendou said

Lotus sighed facepalming.

"Don't bother to try explaining he'll never get it."

"Your no fun." Nendou turned his attention to another part of Kaidou's room. "I'll just snoop around here."

"Knock it off! How dare you mess with my sanctuary you son of-"

"Here we go." Mrs. Kaidou spoke entering the room.

"-make yourself right at home. I'm so happy your here." Kaidou finished with a strained smile.

"That was a quick change."

Everyone was seated at Kaidou's small table as his mother poured tea and passed out the desert.

"I know it's not easy being friends with my son because he's so shy, but please be patient he doesn't have any other."

"Don't say that Ma-Mother." Kaidou stuttered

"She's completely different from my mother."

"Mine too."

"So guys tell me, what college would you kill to get into?" Mrs. Kaidou asked

"Mother it's too soon to ask them that," Kaidou said

"What? It's never too soon to think about your future. You're in high school now so you must be studying for your college exams. Now tell me what coll-" Mrs. Kaidou said

Mrs. Kaidou was interrupted as Nendou started to laugh.

"Your one funny old broad."

"Old broad?" Mrs. Kaidou repeated with a tense tone, her eyebrow giving a slight twitch.

"I sense this conversation took a sharp turn in the wrong direction."

"What's this killer college business? Is he going to assassinate a classroom or something?" Nendou chortled

"What are you talking about?"

Mrs. Kaidou wore a stupefied expression, one could tell she was trying to hold back her anger.

Kaidou tried to save the moment speaking quickly. "No! She means the college you are dying to go to."

But of course, Nendou couldn't read the room and spoke his mind.

"Oh, I'm not going to college. I'm going to be the president of a company," Nendou said

"Yeah, good luck with that."

Mrs. Kaidou turned her attention to Saiki. "And how about you?"

"Yeah, I haven't given it much thought. Right now," Saiki looked down at his coffee jelly, ", all I can think about is this."

Mrs. Kaidou was displeased and gently grabbed the plate confiscating the coffee jelly before looking to Lotus. The poor girl sweated seeing the woman's critical eyes land on her.

"And what about you?"

Lotus flinched at the woman's calm yet sharp tone.

"Well you see my situations a bit different I-"

"I can't believe how flippant you three are with your futures," Mrs. Kaidou said

"But you didn't even let me finish!" Lotus shouted in her mind her jaw dropping in shock.

Kaidou's head was bowed knowing what was going to happen next. "~Here it comes.~"

"College prep begins the moment you step foot in high school. My Shun has been going to cram school three days a week and studies a three extra hours when he gets home from school."

"No wonder Kaidou's having trouble, poor guys burned out!"

Mrs. Kaidou slammed her hands on the table. "Please tell me you all study before your regular and afternoon classes!"

". . . . ."

That was the answer Mrs. Kaidou received from the three, as they had been stunned by the woman's outburst.

Mrs. Kaidou had it, once again slapping a firm hand against the table.

"Shun come with me."

Then the woman piled the table with dozens of workbooks.

"And you three, you need workbooks. You can have your snacks when you're done."

Kaidou followed his mother out of the room and the woman slammed the door behind her.

Nendou didn't seem to care at all, immediately going back to snooping around Kaidou's room. Saiki and Lotus, however, with the use of their powers could hear everything going on outside the room.

"I don't want you hanging out with those three anymore." Mrs. Kaidou told her son or rather ordered him.

"But-?"

"You'll turn out like them. You need friends who are your equal or better yet one notch above you. You don't have time to play around." Mrs. Kaidou said

"His mom is obsessed with education huh? But she's not wrong."

"Kaidou's grades have been slipping as of late. And your first year of high school is where one should start college prep."

"Plus if she forbids him from seeing me that'd be great."

"Saiki!"

"What?"

"Saiki….deep down...I know you really don't mean that…"

"Those three are precious friends of mine. I won't just abandon them. Okay," Kaidou told his mother

Saiki wore a small smirk that one could almost describe as being proud. Kaidou's words and Saiki's smile also caused Lotus to smile too.

"Deep down Saiki, you care…"

"My baby dares to disobey me." Mrs. Kaidou spoke with an all-powerful authoritative tone.

This causes Kaidou to immediately back down. "No, it's not like that…" He meekly squeaked out.

"Wow."

Kaidou started to cry running away from his mother.

"If you can't dump those losers than I will!" Mrs. Kaidou let out a sigh watching her son runoff. "You know this might actually be the first time he stood up to me."

"Saiki…."

Saiki looked to Lotus, the girl had her head down staring at her hands in her lap. Her fists were clenched, clutching onto her skirt. The girl's shoulders were shaking and for a brief moment, Saiki thought she was going to start crying, that is until her head snapped up, and instead of tears Saiki saw a determined fire in her eyes.

"That lady has no idea about us, especially me! I'm gonna show her, she's wrong and that Kaidou is in good hands with us!" Lotus got up rolling up her sleeves glaring determinedly down at the large stack of workbooks. "I'll show Kaidou's mother, by completing every single one of these workbooks before she returns!"

"Sure you can do all that?"

"100% sure. But I will need the help of some powers to boost my speed. First I need to distract Nendou."

"That'll probably be easier than any problem in those workbooks."

"Hey, Nendou-oh…"

Lotus looked to Nendou to see that he was already distracted.

Nendou was laying on the ground in front of Kaidou's TV playing a video game.

"Told you."

"Alright time to get to work!"

Lotus took a seat at the table right next to Saiki. She whipped out a pencil twirling it around in her fingers before flipping open the first book.

"Alright, it's go time!"

The moment Lotus's pencil touches the page her hand shot off writing furiously. She went through every question with unimaginable speed finishing off the first workbook in a manner of seconds. Within a minute she already had a stack of several completed workbooks.

Saiki watched rather impressed, not only was Lotus handling her powers quite well, but she was using her own brain to solve the problems. Saiki was just going to simply make the answers appear on the page, but Lotus's determination and skill were admirable.

*DOKI*

Saiki felt the jump in his chest and would have turned away from Lotus, but as she so focused on the workbooks he deemed it was fine to watch. As he watched her, he started to get lost in his own mind, something that rarely occurs. His thoughts mainly centered around Lotus.

"Maybe-!?"

"Done!"

Saiki's eyes widened as he was slightly startled by Lotus's shout.

"I finished them all!" Lotus stated with a proud smile.

The workbooks were stacked in a neat pile and the pencil Lotus was holding was now half the size and a bit of smoke was emitting from the tip of the writing utensil.

A small smile came to Saiki's lips.

"Guess that means it's time for coffee jelly and tea."

When Kaidou's mother returned she was flabbergasted to see Nendou lounging around playing a video game, while Saiki and Lotus enjoyed the snacks the woman had provided.

"What you three doing! I told you to work on these!" Mrs. Kaidou picked up one of the workbooks opening it. "This is why I don't want you to-huh?" Mrs. Kaidou paused flipping through the books.

She gasped grabbing more workbooks confounded to see that they were all complete.

"~They finished them! It hasn't even been ten minutes! Could these three actually be geniuses?~"

"Ma'am I hate to be rude, but you're wrong about us," Lotus said

"Well, maybe not Nendou."

"Huh?" Mrs. Kaidou questioned looking at Lotus.

"You didn't give me the opportunity to finish my sentence from earlier. When you asked me about my future. My situation is a bit different from my fellow classmates, as I have been contemplating studying abroad." Lotus stated

"Abroad?" Mrs. Kaidou mumbled

"Yes, both of my parents received all of their degrees in different countries and I have been contemplating if I wanted to attend one of their alma maters," Lotus said

"Degrees? As in plural, do your parents have multiple degrees?" Mrs. Kaidou asked

Lotus nodded her head, "Yes. My father has his Ph.D., so he also has his Bachelor's and Master's. My mother, however, holds two Ph.D.'s."

"Two!" Mrs. Kaidou exclaimed

"She's actually currently working on her third. My mother actually passed the Mensa test with an IQ of 163." Lotus said

"163!" Mrs. Kaidou shouted

"My sister is currently studying her way towards her first Ph.D. in Bioengineering. I've also been thinking of going to the school she's studied at as well." Lotus said

Saiki raised a brow at those facts, he had no idea Lotus's family was so smart, not just smart they're geniuses.

"~I had this girl all wrong! She's a hard worker and comes from a line of high intellectuals.~"

Kaidou finally regained the confidence to comfort his mother and stormed his way back into his room.

"Mama I know what you said earlier but I can't let-?!"

Kaidou was thrown for a loop seeing his mother smiling and serving his three friends.

"I hope you three continue to be friends with my baby Shun. Oh, Shun! Why didn't you tell me how wonderful your friends were?"

"Goal completed!"

"At least now we don't look as dumb as him," Saiki said looking at Nendou.

"Now sit down and study with your friends Shun baby." Mrs. Kaidou picked up a notebook flipping the pages. "Oh? Scenario for the Jet Black Wings? What's this?"

Kaidou's face immediately went cherry red.

"GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"