Chapter Text
Once, Serizawa Katsuya had thought that watching the President blow up was going to be the hardest thing he would ever have to do.
That had seemed appropriate at the time. After the years he’d wasted with Claw and the emotional catharsis he’d just experienced thanks to Kageyama’s intervention, he was ready for it to be over with a huge, fiery explosion of psychic power. Never again would he lose something as important to him as this was. It was grim, perhaps, but at the same time strangely optimistic. One last surge of violence, then peace.
He realized now that he’d been wrong.
The tornado had stopped, and Serizawa feared the worst.
This “peace” left a knot in his stomach. He tried to stop the trembling in his hands by gripping his new umbrella’s handle as hard as possible, but it didn’t comfort him the way it used to. It didn’t comfort him at all.
Every instinct and his common sense told him to turn around. If he was smart, he’d evacuate like the rest of the city’s residents. Stay out of the path of destruction. Take no responsibility for the carnage.
But he couldn’t do that. The second that he felt the invisible power drain close up, he moved forward, umbrella in hand.
This was what he knew: Mob (Serizawa had started to pick up Reigen’s nickname for him) was an insanely powerful esper. Something had unexpectedly triggered a massive outpouring of psychic energy from him— Serizawa was familiar with that. And now, all of a sudden, the deluge had stopped entirely.
This was what he didn’t know: what had stopped it?
In Serizawa’s experience, suddenly and fully stopping— not just redirecting or delaying, but truly ending— a psychic meltdown was… almost impossible. For Reigen, a non-psychic, to completely and successfully put a halt to Mob’s ridiculously powerful outburst was unprecedented to his knowledge. The only things that Serizawa could think of actually working were— they were equally awful. Either Mob experienced another comparable shock— like, say, an irrevocable loss— or he himself had been… lost.
Reigen and Mob. Both of their lives were in the balance. One or both of them could have— they could be—
Serizawa prepared himself for what could possibly be the true worst moment of his life.
He didn’t have time to pick his way through the rubble. Holding his umbrella like a battering ram, he telekinetically shoved piles of debris out of the way to clear a path. He was powerful, but even still it was taxing. For Kageyama to have laid waste to the city like this, it was…
Serizawa wouldn’t call it monstrous, not ever. He knew what it was like to be considered and to consider himself a monster. He would never lay that on Mob. But it was unbelievable, how indiscriminate the destruction had been.
Reigen…
He’d almost objected when Reigen declared he was going into the storm alone. He wasn’t even sure that Reigen understood the magnitude of what he walking into. Psychic storms weren’t like regular storms— there was a mind, an emotion behind every burst of psychic power. It was never a guarantee that such a storm would pass, if the emotion could not be resolved. This, too, Serizawa knew well. He had been at the center of such a storm for fifteen years.
But how could he tell Reigen no? Mob was more to him than just an employee or student. He was Reigen’s oldest and closest friend. Serizawa had already seen Reigen nearly get himself killed trying to protect Mob from Suzuki— he himself had just barely stood in the way. Mob was like family to Reigen. There was nothing he could say that would make Reigen change his mind.
Nothing at all…?
If Reigen had— if he was… gone… what would Serizawa wish he had said?
He felt the dangerous surge of his own psychic powers, stirred by the strong emotions that were beginning to boil inside him. He clenched his teeth, moving a fallen streetlamp out of the way like throwing a javelin. His control over his power was a thousand times better than it had been when Claw fell due to the huge strides he’d made, but if his worst fears came true, even he didn’t know what would happen.
He was carefully advancing, aware that at any moment the tornado could return. That almost would’ve been a relief to him, since it would mean that at least Mob was still alive. He would be in deep trouble, being this much closer, but relieved even as the last of his energy was drained away from him.
Then, he saw something on the ground in front of him. A small heap. He stopped.
Shoes. And a suit jacket. And a tie. Serizawa recognized them instantly. They were Reigen’s.
Serizawa’s hands were shaking as he bent down to pick up the clothing— hell, his whole body was shaking. Reigen took off his shoes. The image alone was hard to take in, let alone the implication.
“Reigen-san, please,” Serizawa said, as if he were talking to him, as if he could change it. “Please don’t do this.”
He carefully folded his jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was dirty, but not torn. Same with the tie. Reigen had definitely taken them off on purpose. The shoes, too, probably.
The shoes. Serizawa had to grapple with what that could mean as he picked them up as well. Had Reigen really… accepted it? Was he ready to… go? And was this the most confirmation he would ever get: a pair of scuffed loafers?
He could feel his careful control of his powers loosening, fraying like a rope rubbed repeatedly against a sharp edge. Part of him, a fraction that was rapidly growing in proportion, wanted to just cut to the chase and cut it loose; the city was already destroyed, wasn’t it? Was it a crime for him to carve his grief into the shattered pavement? Why not explode?
“Please,” he said again, in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “I had something that I wanted to tell you—“
“Serizawa? Oi, is that you over there?”
Serizawa dropped everything— the shoes, the jacket, even his umbrella. He spun around to see, a small distance away, two human figures approaching. Two living, breathing humans; the two people for which everything hung in the balance.
“Reigen! Shigeo!”
He ran to them. Before either of them could say anything, Serizawa grabbed them both in a huge bear hug. They were solid, and warm, and alive.
“Ah, it’s good to see you too,” Reigen said in a slightly constricted voice.
“Yo, don’t crush them,” said another familiar voice that Serizawa hadn’t heard in a while. He looked up to see a faint-but-unmistakable green spirit.
“Dimple?” he said. “You’re back too?”
Dimple shrugged his immaterial shoulders. “Guess so. Now, are you going to suffocate these two after they just made it back?”
Serizawa realized he was still squeezing Reigen and Mob. He quickly released them and jumped back, clearing his throat, a little embarrassed by his reaction. He couldn't help it.
“Uh, sorry,” he said. “It’s just that… well, I feared the worst. And I’m so glad that you’re all okay.”
All of those feelings of fear were rushing out of him now, like air out of balloon. His body tingled with relief.
He surveyed Reigen, then Kageyama. Neither seemed to be badly hurt; Reigen had a few scratches here and there. He looked like he’d been through hell, sure, with his shirt shredded and covered with dust, but for the most part not injured. Mob had also come out of the ordeal without sustaining any apparent injuries, but it was evident that he had been crying. Even now, he was looking down and occasionally sniffling or swiping at his eyes. His lips were pressed in a tight frown.
That surprised Serizawa. He’d never seen Mob emote so openly and yet so… calmly. By his measure, Mob wasn’t putting out any significant power right now. He was just crying, like a regular kid.
Serizawa looked at Reigen, who mouthed the girl and gave a subtle thumbs down. Ah. So he’d been rejected, on top of everything else. Well, he didn’t have any good advice on healing that type of wound.
“You gave it your best shot, Kageyama-kun,” he said lamely.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Reigen jumped in. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
“Better than not trying at all,” Dimple added.
Mob nodded, but he was still obviously miserable. Serizawa, Reigen, and Dimple all looked at each other with similarly helpless expressions. Damn it… None of us know anything about girls!
“Let’s head back to the office to regroup,” Reigen said. “Serizawa, you found my shoes, didn’t you? I’d like those back.”
“Right over there,” Serizawa said. “I’ll go grab them.”
He went over to pick up the clothes and his umbrella. Surprisingly, Dimple followed him. Serizawa figured that the spirit knew that he had important questions that weren’t necessarily good to ask in Mob's earshot.
“Did you see what happened?” Serizawa asked in a low voice.
“A bit. Not the whole thing. I’ve been kind of out of mojo myself, if you couldn’t tell. Was only able to pull it together in time to keep Reigen from getting his shit kicked in.”
“But Reigen was able to put a stop to it?”
“With my help, yeah. He talked to Shigeo.”
“Well…” Serizawa paused and looked at the spirit. “What did he say?”
Dimple wavered— literally, flickering in and out of view for a moment. “You can ask him that yourself… Hey, is that a new umbrella?”
They returned to Reigen and Mob. Serizawa gave Reigen back his clothes, and watched wordlessly as he slipped his shoes back on.