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Reigen found her standing in the park, with the ribbons of destruction curled tight around her.

Trees had been torn up by the roots and tossed aside, centuries of growth destroyed in seconds. A swingset had snapped neatly in two, like the ground cracked and threatened to give under Reigen’s every careful step. Shouts of fear, children screaming, the wail of sirens signifying danger, saying to get out. Tsubomi stood in the middle of it all, perfectly still. In her hands, she was holding a huge bouquet, with flowers that had petals that stretched wider than her face.

“Hey,” Reigen said to her, and after a moment she looked up into his face.  

For a second, he was surprised- her expression was even, framed by satin black hair pinned with brightly colored barrettes. But then he saw the tension in her hands, crumpling the plastic wrapping around the flowers. 

“I couldn’t accept his confession,” she said to him, and her voice was distant. “I… I hardly knew him. But he made me take the flowers.” The plastic rustled in her fingers.

 “You’re Tsubomi, right?” Reigen asked, and she nodded. He crouched in front of her and regretted it immediately from the protest in his knees, but he stayed steady, looking into her eyes. “My name is Reigen Arataka. Are you feeling all right?” 

She nodded, again, and Reigen chewed his lip. “Okay, good. You’re doing great. Listen. I’m a very powerful psychic, and I’m trying to help Mob- he’s lost control of his powers, right?”

“Mob,” she said softly. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Right,” Reigen said. “I want to help him get control again, so he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t mean to. But I can’t do that unless I know where he is, and what happened. Can you tell me?” 

Tsubomi finally focused on his face, and she was suddenly serious, measuring him with care. “I do know you,” she said finally. “You pick Mob up from school, sometimes. I remember, because you two don’t look alike, and I was confused as to why-”

Something was catching in her throat, and she shook her head, like she was trying to clear it away. Reigen held steady, until she finally looked back at him.“I… I knew he had powers," Tsubomi continued, voice barely shaking, "but it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. He was all covered in some kind of energy. Things were just breaking apart when he moved. I only knew it was him because of the uniform- and we’d agreed to meet before…” She stared down at the flowers. “I sort of guessed this was what it was about. He wasn’t making much sense- I couldn’t really understand what he was saying- but I told him I couldn’t return his feelings. 

“And then he did this.” She gestured to the ruined park around them. The wail of a police siren drew close, then passed, zooming away to some emergency. “But he didn’t hurt me. He just- looked at me. And then he left.”

“Something must have happened,” Reigen muttered. “Tsubomi. Where would he have gone? Do you have any idea?" 

The bouquet moved out of the way of her face as she dropped her arms to her side. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t. But he was heading that way-” she pointed with her free arm, out and away from the park into the horizon. Smoke clouded the sky over the grey jagged buildings. “And I imagine that in… Whatever state that was, he wouldn’t be hard to find.”

Reigen watched the sky, going orange with the fading day. The smoke stretched out like fingers into the dusk.

Tsubomi ended up being correct. The trail of destruction through the city ended up being easy to track. Overturned cars, ripped up streets, ruined buildings. The ground below Reigen was punctured, like something heavy had cracked it with each ponderous step. He imagined Mob’s scuffed white sneakers pushing down into the earth and breaking it open, creating these endless deep holes in the ground. Reigen kept his hands in his pockets and pushed against the flow of pedestrians, clogging up the roads as they stood still in shock, or cried, or ran. The sirens got louder and louder.

It wasn’t until he was trying to climb through some bright yellow caution tape that someone stopped him. “Sir,” a man in a black suit and sunglasses said as he grabbed Reigen’s arm, “stand back. This area is restricted for your safety.”  

“Why,” Reigen said, one leg looped between stretches of yellow tape, “because there’s a stressed out psychic teenager running amok? I’ll be fine.”

The man’s eyes weren’t visible, but Reigen could still see him blinking at him. “How do you know-” he shifted threads in the middle of the sentence, tone sharpening again. “Sir, as you can see from the state of the city, the threat is highly volatile. We’re working to neutralize him safely, so for your own well being, stay away.”

“Like you’ve never been hormonal as a teen,” Reigen said dismissively. He began twitching his arm out of his sleeve, but the man firmed up his hold and Reigen was jerked back. He sighed, and turned back to look at the man. “You’re one of those government guys that grabbed that psychic asshole that day, right?” Reigen asked. “Look. I was there. The only reason we’re not all kissing his boots right now is because of that kid,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, into the depths of the city, “and now you’re trying to just dispose of him.”

“I never said-”

 Reigen held up a hand, face twisting into a sneer. “Like I don’t know what neutralize means. Please. I can get him to calm down, okay? I’ve done it before. Just… Let me try. It’ll save you a whole lot of bloodshed.”

For a moment, the man hesitated, lips parting in the beginning of a word. His fingers relaxed a degree around Reigen’s arm, but then tightened again into a vice. “I’m sorry, I can’t allow-" 

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Reigen said. He pulled his free arm back and smashed his fist into the side of the man’s face, and the man fell back, sunglasses flying. Reigen yanked himself free, the worn sleeve the man held ripping off his suit jacket as he dove through the million lines of yellow tape. Someone shouted as he ran, and hands reached out to grab at him, but Reigen shoved past them all. Police cars were arranged nose to nose to block the road, but he jumped. The hood crumpled under his shoes, and then Reigen jumped again, onto the cracked road. He hissed as he landed, leg twisting under him. But if he stopped, he’d be dragged back, and that wasn’t an option. Reigen pushed on.

The further he got, the farther away the sirens were. The city was empty, in a way Reigen hadn’t seen since Claw had attacked it- but even then, this was different. The wail of sirens, and a strange hum of pressure, made the world tilted and wrong. Reigen limped down the destroyed roads, following the rabbit trail of destruction into the city’s heart.

When Reigen finally found him, the pressure was almost suffocating. Electric power, palpable in an entirely new way burned in the atmosphere. He’d felt it before- the hum of psychic power that made his ears ring, that made him feel like something was pushing at his eyes in their sockets. But this was different. Moving felt like pushing through something thicker than air. So Reigen stopped, watching Mob standing in the middle of the street.

The road was bent underneath his feet, like it couldn’t carry his weight. Shards of asphalt drifted around his face, along with concrete, smashed up metal, gathered detritus from his slow move through the city. Aura ripped and twisted around him, casting his whole body in black except for white-out eyes. It was something Reigen had never seen before. He had a feeling it wasn't something he was meant to see. 

Reigen settled his hands in his pants pockets and breathed. “Oi, Mob,” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Mob’s head turned in painful degrees. When his eyes settled on him, Reigen had to fight to stay standing under the sudden increase of pressure. His knees threatened to give out, but Reigen kept his head level, staring back into the empty white eyes. 

“This hardly looks like being responsible with your powers,” Reigen said casually. “It’s understandable to be upset over a rejection, but people get turned down every day, and they don’t go tearing up cities. I’m a bit disappointed you're acting this way, I won’t lie.”

“This isn’t about her,” Mob said.

 The voice was not quite his own. Reigen could hear it, underneath layers of distortion and through the ringing in his ears, but it was like finding one thread in thousands. It sounded like a whisper, magnified and played over itself a hundred times, and all of them cold and impartial. Reigen’s skin crawled. Mob’s eyes slid away from him, and the pressure lessened. “Then what, eh?” Reigen asked. “Just decided it was time to start tearing up cities? It’s a way to stand out, for sure, but I don’t think Tsubomi’s the type to go for that.” 

Mob didn’t answer. He was staring at some point through the lines of buildings, far away from Reigen’s eyes. “Mob,” Reigen said, using his softest, most comforting voice. “Listen to me. Tell me what’s wrong. What happened?” 

“Why did you come?” Mob asked. 

Reigen hesitated.

It had been on the news. Explosions of strange, terrible magnitude, moving around the city. Reigen had watched it via a livestream on his laptop, hoping it wasn’t what he knew it was, until they showed the ruined park. Mob had suggested the idea in the office the day before- going back to the park where they’d first met, and both he and Serizawa had agreed it was a good choice. Romantic and nostalgic- bringing them both back to simpler times. Reigen had shut the livestream off and headed out the door, only bothering to flip the open sign off and lock the office door. He’d followed the trail of wreckage, hoping Mob was alright, hoping it wasn’t his doing, hoping- 

“Because you’re my student,” Reigen said. “I’m supposed to be looking out for you, aren’t I? Making sure you’re following my teachings. If I let you behave this way, I’d be a rotten master. Come on. Calm down, and let’s go home.”

“I can’t.” 

“Sure you can,” Reigen said. “Just take my hand.”  

He stretched out his arm, and Mob’s eyes went huge in his face, like twin headlights. “Don’t come near me,” he said. “Don’t.” It sounded like a threat, instead of the voice of a scared child Reigen had heard so many times before.

Reigen stopped halfway through a step, arm still outstretched in front of him. He watched Mob, the flickering dark shape in front of him. “Why?” Reigen asked. “Why can’t you calm down?” 

Mob stared back at him, at the hand outstretched. “Because,” he said. “I don’t want to leave.”

“You wouldn’t be leaving, Mob, don’t be ridiculous,” Reigen said sharply. “I mean, sure, maybe you wouldn’t be all,” he waved his outstretched hand at the blackness around Mob, “but you’re still going to be here. I don’t really know what caused this, but I promise we’ll get it sorted out.” 

Reigen pulled his hand back, replacing it in his pocket again. Mob watched the movement, still stiff and silent. “You’re not understanding me,” he said. It didn’t seem like his mouth moved with the words.

“I can’t understand you if you won’t tell me what’s going on,” Reigen said. “Mob. Please.” 

It was a long time till he spoke again. Mob turned away again, staring down the street, and Reigen began to prepare to follow him down the rupturing street. “There was a car,” he said, finally. “He got hit.”

Reigen breathed in, a sudden list of possibilities churning through his head. Something terrible Mob had seen, breaking open whatever this was inside of him- a pedestrian, a friend, his brother- “who?” he asked. 

“Mob did,” he said.

And suddenly, all the air Reigen had breathed in was gone again, like it had been punched out of his lungs. “Mob-” Reigen’s legs were shaking again, but he wasn’t sure it was from just the pressure. “Aren’t you- Mob?”

“There was so much blood,” he said, calm and quiet, but still perfectly audible over the thrum of his aura. “But the flowers still needed to go to Tsubomi. I wasn’t going to let anyone get in my way.”

“I don’t understand,” Reigen said, even though he did. He didn’t want to, but he did. “Mob, come on-”

“No one got in my way,” Mob said, suddenly reflective. “But she still said no. I didn’t know what to do then.”

Reigen took one step forward, and found it was painful. He bent over the cosmic pressure, arms wrapping around himself in an attempt to steady himself. “Mob,” Reigen said. He kept saying his name, over and over again, because it was all he could think of to say. “Mob, listen to me, you’re gonna be fine-”

“I’m telling you, that’s not true,” he said. “I’m all that’s left.” 

“And I’m telling you, you’re wrong,” Reigen shouted. The words came out ragged and painful, tearing his throat on the way out of his mouth. “Mob, I won’t let you, all right? I won’t let you die.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and Reigen went still. As soon as he said it, the idea was suddenly real, like he’d made it come true by saying it.

There had been blood on the pavement, he remembered now. He’d remembered seeing it, and hoping that Mob hadn’t done something he’d regret. Reigen hadn’t allowed himself the possibility that it could have been Mob’s.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Mob said, and his voice, still warped and distorted and wrong, was suddenly very small. “I was doing what I was supposed to.” And Reigen saw the sticky blood, barely visible through the black aura around his body. It came from his temple and stained the black fabric of his uniform.

The possibility was stupid to be real. Mob, who had banished spirits and saved the world, who fought things more frightening than Reigen could have possibly imagined, who was better than anything Reigen should have ever been allowed near, getting killed in a car accident. A freak accident. They happened every day. It just so happened that this one had happened to someone who could break the earth in two. Reigen wanted to laugh, but the idea of something else leaking out instead threatened.

Mob turned again, and under his foot the earth broke again. It was strange to watch, cracks radiating out from him in wild patterns. Reigen struggled to stay standing as the earth shifted. “I’m going to go now,” Mob said. “Goodbye.”

Reigen caught himself barely, arms held out akimbo in a desperate attempt to maintain balance. He watched Mob take another terrible step, and the ground gave again. A chunk of concrete pulled free from the earth, revealing the dirt beneath the pavement. Reigen suddenly had the vision of Mob walking straight through Seasoning City, out across the earth, destroying it with each unintentional wave of power. “Mob,” he said. “Come back here. Please.” 

 His hands were shaking as he stretched them out again in front of him, trembling in an uncontrollable way. Mob didn’t turn back, only continued down the road. “Mob,” he said again. “Mob!” He pushed through the atmosphere down the street again, and a crack ran on the ground between his feet. He stumbled. “Get back here,” he shouted, his own volume finally matching the noise in his head. “You can’t stay like this.”

Mob stopped again, ground shaking with one final step. He still didn’t turn around, simply stared forward down the long street. “Why?” He asked. 

“Wh- look around you, Mob,” Reigen said. He spread his hands wide, gesturing to the street around you. “You can’t control your powers when you’re like this. If you keep going, you’ll do something you’ll regret. You’ll break something you can’t fix.”

“I don’t care about that,” Mob said, voice impossibly cold. 

“I don’t believe that,” Reigen said. “Not for a second.”

Mob tilted his head back, like he was watching the clouds drift overhead. But the sky was empty, except for plumes of black smoke. Suddenly, looking at him was impossible. Reigen lifted his chin up to look at the sky as well, at its vast emptiness. He breathed in. The air tasted like ash. 

When he could trust his voice again, Reigen said, conversationally, “do you know why I don’t believe that, Mob?” 

He didn’t answer. Reigen swallowed. “Because that’s all you’ve ever cared about. The very first time you came into my office, that was what you wanted to know. How you could control this.” He gestured at Mob. “I helped you, but really, Mob? It was all you. You learned how to do it yourself. So the idea-” the words were beginning to crack, just like the splintering earth. Reigen jammed his hands deep into his pockets. “So the idea that you would just stop caring is absurd. I know you better than that. You’re too good.”

For a long moment, Mob said nothing, nothing at all, and Reigen began to fear he would begin to move down the street again. If he did, maybe Reigen would let him- just let Mob walk forever, into endless nights as something not quite himself, but at the very least still here. But then, he said, soft and quiet, “it didn’t feel like anything. That’s how I knew it was different.”

“Oh, Mob,” Reigen said, because even he couldn’t find anything else to say.

“I don’t-” the sleeves of his uniform bunched as he tensed, head bending forward over himself. “I don’t want this to happen.” His voice was emerging from behind the hundreds of warped and distorted sounds. The ground buckled again with him as he folded further forward. “Shishou-” and with the word, Reigen saw the tears spilling from his eyes. They floated in the air, glimmering white in the bright sunlight. “I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Reigen said, not fast enough to keep it from sounding wet. “No, Mob, you didn’t. You did everything right. This isn’t fair, all right? You didn’t deserve this. It just happened. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The world really was giving way now, road ripping up into nothing around them, disintegrating into gravel and then something smaller than that. Reigen held up his arms to his face to shield himself. He hadn’t been prepared for this. Reigen had worked his way through a couple hypotheticals while preparing for the day, of what he might have to say, what wisdom he might have to offer. But when he’d been washing his face, adjusting his tie, putting out the stub of a guilty cigarette- every aspect of his suddenly asinine, meaningless morning routine- helping his student understand his own mortality had not even occurred to Reigen. Even his silver tongue, his gift that had carried him past obstacles he had no business overcoming, couldn’t justify this pointless, idiotic tragedy.

“What am I going to do?” Mob asked, voice still distorted with the wail of psychic power and grief, long and keening in the air. “I don’t want to leave everyone behind.”

I don’t want you to leave either, Reigen almost screamed, something in his chest close to bursting. I’m not ready. I thought I had time and I still wasn’t ready. Suddenly, looking at the scene in front of him, Reigen understood why Mob had always been afraid of what he kept locked inside. If Reigen had ever had the fraction of the power he had claimed to possess, the world around him in would have been destroyed the moment he had seen the blood matted in Mob’s hair. Reigen reached out shaking hands, through the pressure, through the sharp gravel that cut at his arms. He stepped forward.

Mob turned to face him, and Reigen, for just a moment, saw his face, his real face, before black swallowed it again. It was too white, with eyes wide in shock. “Shishou,” he said. “Don’t.”

“Try and stop me, kid,” Reigen said. 

He closed the gap in trembling, painful steps, the pressure unreal, injured leg screaming at him to stop. Even though Mob was stepping back, the ground was knitting itself together just enough for Reigen to bridge the gap between them. Each step forward he took, a piece of concrete came up under his foot until he was just in front of Mob. His aura sparked against Reigen’s skin before he could even touch him. Reigen placed his hands on Mob’s shoulders. He was cold enough to burn, sharp, deep, pain. Reigen stared into his face. The blood was obvious now, and Reigen had to keep himself from wiping it away with his hand. It wouldn’t give him what he wanted- the wound gone along with the blood.

“I wanted to grow up,” Mob said, voice soft. 

And it was his, this time. No echo, no strange static distortion from the feedback of his own power. Reigen pulled Mob close, arms tight, too tight, trying to make up for every time he had meant to say something warm and stopped, every time he’d kept his hands at his side. Mob leaned his face forward into his shoulder, tension slowly bleeding away into the air around them. It was like being in the eye of a tornado- Reigen could see the storm twisting around them, the smashed earth and howling wind, but it was suddenly quiet and calm.

It was a good thing after all that Mob wasn’t looking at him- Reigen’s face was suddenly much too damp for his liking. “I told you, didn’t I?” He said. “You already have.”

Mob buried his face deeper into Reigen’s shoulder, and his shirt shredded under the lash of his aura. He was shaking in Reigen's arms. “Have I ever told you,” Reigen said, every word painful to say, “what a good person you are? I told you to be a good person, and you are. You’re better than anyone I know.”

“That’s not true,” Mob said.

“It is,” Reigen said. “Maybe it’s hard to believe me- God knows I’ve lied about enough- but you are, I promise. I never deserved to know someone like you. I’m so sorry that I never said it before.”

The breath Mob drew in was deep and ragged, and the current of it cut against Reigen’s skin. It shouldn’t have been him in this moment, holding Mob, Reigen realized. It should have been his friends, his brother, his parents- anyone but Reigen. But he was here. He was the one getting to say goodbye. And he couldn’t get the words out. 

Mob’s head was pulling away from his shoulder. Reigen tightened his grip, trying to keep him from moving, but his face tilted up. Reigen found himself staring into the wide glowing whites of his eyes. He was suddenly aware of the tear tracks on his face, the blood staining his shirt, the way his whole body was shaking with the force of the moment. Reigen tried to put on his most genuine, most reassuring smile. It was crumpling on his face.

“I’m hurting you,” Mob said.

Reigen shook his head. “You could never hurt me.” 

But Mob’s hand, coated with black, reached out and brushed his arm, and the shirt tore. Reigen stiffened as Mob looked up at him again. 

“No. You were right,” Mob said. “I’m hurting everything by staying.”

Reigen blinked wide and blank, until the words sunk in. “No,” he said, suddenly frantic. “Mob, I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t- you don’t have to-”

“Shishou.”

“Just a moment longer, all right,” Reigen said, shaking still, but now not from the force of the air around him. “I’m going to think of something, all right? You’ll be all right. I’ll be all-” his voice was failing him, wobbling and breaking with each word. “Believe me,” he finished instead.

“I always believe you,” Mob said. But Reigen could see his aura receding up his body as this strange new form gave way. Reigen grabbed at him, trying to keep hold, but it slipped out of his fingers, coalescing around Mob's face.

“Please don’t go,” Reigen said, unable to keep the childish words down.

Mob reached up his hands, and they pressed into Reigen’s cheeks- a mirror of a moment that felt like it had happened both centuries and seconds ago. “Can you tell everyone I said thank you?” He asked. “I meant to do it myself. But I forgot. It never seemed like enough, anyway.”

Reigen grabbed at his wrists, still close to his face. A hundred words raced through his minds- stay and do it yourself, or I should be the one thanking you, or don’t leave, please God don’t leave. But he swallowed, and said, “I promise.”

“Okay,” Mob said. “Shishou?”

“Yeah,” Reigen said, the word choking in his throat. The aura was flaking away from Mob’s face, revealing his face underneath along with the blood bright against his pale skin. 

“Thank you.”

And then the last of his aura peeled away, and a thunderbolt clapped in Reigen’s system.

The first time Mob had given Reigen his powers, he hadn’t realized it had almost all drained from his fingertips. This time, Reigen knew it, in the way his skin went electric and the way his teeth ground together. Everything shook as the flow of power flowed through him. It was more, so much more than before, like a dam had finally burst that no one had been able to see.

And with it, came the feeling of it- gratitude. And then sorrow, and anger, and confusion, and every emotion Mob had ever held down. They exploded through Reigen without pause, and he found himself on his knees, still clinging to Mob as it burned through him.

Around him, the city pulled itself together. Street signs straightened out, buildings reassembled, even the gravel reassembled into flat perfect planes of concrete. Reigen bent low over Mob, unable to watch what was happening around him. He could only feel the power in his veins like liquid fire. It moved without his command, using him only as the instrument of its reparations. All Reigen could do was feel the tidal wave of power and emotions that weren’t his. Reigen squeezed his eyes shut.

When Reigen opened his eyes, after hours, or maybe seconds, he was face down in the street.

He could feel the dampness still on his face, and the clutch of his chest, mid heave. Reigen wheezed the breath out, almost relaxing against the ground. But then, the weight holding down his arms reminded him. It was cold against his chest.

Reigen sat up. Without looking, he pulled along the weight into his lap, as careful as he could. He stared emptily at the world around him.

The street was whole again. Maybe more whole than it had been in the first place- Reigen had never seen a street of Seasoning City look so clean. The only sign of anything at all was a crack running in a circle around Reigen. It was like a barrier. Maybe it had been.

Reigen finally looked down. 

Mob’s eyes had fallen shut, and maybe if it hadn’t been for the blood on his face, Reigen could have thought he was sleeping. But he was too still, and his arms angled awkwardly against Reigen like a limp doll. He straightened them out with trembling fingers. Maybe Reigen was never going to stop shaking. He couldn’t imagine ever being calm enough again. The illusion of sleep wasn't any better.

“You’re too good a kid, Mob,” Reigen said, folding the arms across Mob's chest with care. “Think I wouldn’t notice you fixing up all the cuts I got? Couldn’t you have saved that energy up for yourself?” He brushed his fingers against Mob’s forehead, and immediately pulled them away. He could feel the shape of the wound through the dried blood.

 Reigen breathed out, and the air turned white from the chill. “God, I hadn’t realized it had gotten that cold,” Reigen said, watching the mist of his breath. “Guess that would explain why I keep shaking. Well, here, Mob, all right?”

He shrugged his grey jacket off, one sleeve still missing, and draped it over him. Then, he pulled him into his lap, close enough to rest Mob’s head on his shoulder. “You fixed the leg too, huh,” Reigen said, running a hand over where the abused leg should have complained. “Well, I’m still not going anywhere any time soon, Mob. I don’t think-” the calm suddenly splintered away again. “I could go anywhere. I can’t leave you behind, after all.” 

The sky above was clear of smoke. Reigen stared, unseeing, into the brilliant orange sunset that made Seasoning City’s perfect skyline glow.