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Ritsu came sprinting down the street at a speed that shouldn’t be attainable by any normal twelve year old boy. With fire in his eyes, he cleared a path to Shou like Moses parting the Red Sea, if the Red Sea was a mass of frightened, unsuspecting bystanders and Moses was a rage-filled child screaming like a banshee.
“Ritsu!” Shou called out, attempting to mask his fear with cheerfulness. Ritsu only plowed forward, fixing onto Shou with a glare that could wither crops and vaporize oceans.
“How could you betray me like this?” he shrieked, grabbing the front of Shou’s shirt in his hands. Shou grinned back, outwardly oblivious to his imminent demise, although internally he was shrieking with terror.
“You’re angry?” Shou taunted. Ritsu’s expression twisted into that of a feral raccoon poked with a stick.
“Of course I’m angry!”
“Come on Ritsu,” Shou said leaning backwards, spreading his arms out in a show of confidence, only being held up by Ritsu’s death grip on his shirt. “If you’re really angry, prove it! Swear at me! Say fuck!”
Ritsu looked angrily at the ground, avoiding Shou’s gaze, contemplating. Then, suddenly, released his grip on Shou’s shirt, shoved him away, and took an exaggerated deep breath.
“Fuck you!” Ritsu screamed, throwing a punch at Shou in all of his unmuscular pre pubescent glory.
In this moment, Shou had several options. He hadn’t really thought that Ritsu would actually give in and say fuck in the first place, and he certainly hadn’t expected to be outright attacked in this manner. He had planned to continue mocking Ritsu until he got so frustrated he just screamed and ran away, and then they’d probably go get ice cream or something in a few hours. However, this was not how it had turned out, and Shou’s chances of survival were growing slimmer by the second. Despite the fact that he was quite confident in his ability to beat Ritsu in a fight, he wasn’t sure he wanted to get in an outright fistfight with Ritsu right here, especially considering all the cameras present, not to mention the amount of property damage they frequently cause whenever they fight, which, while relatively harmless in a condemned building or the middle of the forest, could cause some serious problems in this populated public area.
So, he had to escape.
Shou knew that Ritsu wouldn’t beat up his unconscious body, so right after he was hit, Shou projected his spirit out of his body, rendering it a useless puppet that fell to the ground in a heap, just like Kermit had before. He also knew that Ritsu was above beating up a rat, which is why the scraggly rodent a few feet away made the perfect vessel for his escape.
Ritsu, of course, had not been enlightened to this decision Shou had come to, and Shou’s thought process in general had always been somewhat of a mystery to him. So naturally, when he saw his friend’s body drop to the ground in a limp heap, he immediately assumed that he had killed him. Maybe he had been watching too much One Punch Man recently, or had simply forgotten his own weakness, especially relative to Shou. Whatever the reason, Ritsu thought he had just murdered Shou and was understandably terrified.
***
“You know you could have just done this yourself.,” Dimple said, tossing the puppet he had just exited at Ritsu.
“Yea, but it’s easier for us to just have you possess Kermit than it is to rig a whole thing with wires and complex camera shots,” Shou replied, just after hitting the ‘post’ button on his snapinstachatgram
“No, no, no!” Dimple inched closer to the boys, “You could have possessed it!”
Shou and Ritsu looked at each other in confusion before turning back to look at Dimple.
“Espers can project their spirits out of their bodies, and with enough practice, even possess and control things just like a spirit can.”
The two boys were immediately intrigued. “Show us how!” they demanded.
After a solid half hour of explanations, demonstrations, and failed attempts to take control of the Kermit, they decided possessing something simpler would be better.
“I have this!” Shou said, pulling a pipe cleaner worm out of his pocket. Its soulless googly eyes haunted Ritsu with their gaze. Shou, on the other hand, seemed unbothered by it, gently shaking the worm in midair to see it squirm around.
Dimple looked at Ritsu, waiting for him to present an object. “Well, do you have something? Any stuffed animals?”
“Well…” Ritsu stared blankly at the ground, “I do have one…”
“What are you waiting for, then?” Dimple questioned. “Go and get it.”
When Ritsu brought back the stuffed animal, everyone could see why he hadn’t wanted to get it. In his arms he cradled a furby--but it wasn’t just a normal furby. It was incredibly long, and it was coiled up in his arms like some sort of fluffy snake.
“I changed my mind,” Dimple said, “put it away.”
“But this is the only one I have!” Ritsu objected. “I tried to sell it so I could get an actual stuffed animal but no one would buy it!”
“I can’t imagine why,” Dimple commented, rolling his eyes.
Shou jumped in. “Because it’s an abomination!” He stared accusingly at the said abomination in Ritsu’s arms. Ritsu’s face took on an offended look and he defensively brought it closer to his body as though some sort of hidden maternal instinct had kicked in, despite how much he deeply despised the creature.
“Well, this seems to be our only option, so how about you just try to get in it so we can get this over with as soon as possible,” Dimple sighed, covering his face with one hand.
Shou, being the more experienced esper and having a smaller vessel to possess, was able to get in without a hitch, and he immediately started writhing on the floor and generally making full use of his new elongated, limbless form. Ritsu, on the other hand, took a bit longer. After a few attempts, and a few minutes spent staring into the furby’s ever knowing eyes, he made it in. Ritsu, of course, had no formal training in posessing long furbies, and in turn had no clue how to control his new snake like body. His attempts to move were fruitless, and instead he ended up convulsing on the floor like a partially dried worm on the sidewalk going into epileptic shock.
Dimple could only stare in horror. Shou had not quite been shocked into silence.
“Ritsu, what the absolute fuck are you doing?” The worm’s nose wiggled ever so slightly as he spoke.
Ritsu having no words to describe his frustration let out a horrifying shriek that shocked even Shou into silence and filled him with a feeling of deep-seated terror for his life.
***
“Alright Mob,” Reigen said patting his apprentice on the shoulder. “Its been a good day but I have an… an important meeting to get to.” A light blush spread across his face.
“Is it a date with Mr. Serizawa?” Mob asked. Reigen immediately became ridiculously flustered and began walking the other way, making sporadic hand motions as he talked.
“Well I wouldn’t say a date… more of a meet up? Um we’re just-” He suddenly broke off, unable to continue talking as he had just run into a wall. Mob looked on in concern.
“Shishou, are you okay?”
“Of course I am!” Reigen furiously brushed off the front of his jacket before straightening up and glancing at his watch. “Anyway, I should be going!” And with that he dashed out the door, not even bothering to lock it. After a few moments, Mob picked up his own items and walked out the door, locking it behind him; someone had to be the responsible one around here, and Reigen wouldn’t appreciate coming back from his date to find that his computer or some of those expensive salts had been stolen.
As Mob walked into his home, he heard an unearthly shrieking coming from the top floor. He immediately sprinted up the stairs, psychic powers flaring up, and, realizing that the sound was coming from Ritsu’s room, flung open the door and stormed inside, calling out, “Ritsu!”
The first thing he saw was Ritsu’s body laying lifeless on the ground. He nearly exploded right then and there, but no--he had to find out what was going on. Last time had been fake, after all.
The second thing he saw was the boy--Shou--who Ritsu wouldn’t stop talking about, despite the fact that he’d kidnapped Ritsu and burned his house down. He was also laying on the ground, not moving.
The third thing he saw was the source of the noise--a long furby writhing in agony on the floor. Next to it, a small pipecleaner worm appeared to be panicking, while Dimple looked on in horror.
Mob immediately turned to the only being in the room who was likely to give him a coherent answer.
“Dimple, what’s going on?” Dimple held out his hands defensively.
“Before you get mad at me, it was their idea!” He paused. “Well, actually, it was my idea, but I had nothing to do with this!” He gestured at the shrieking creature beneath him.
“I don’t care about that. Why are Ritsu and Shou on the floor? Did something happen?”
“I’ve been teaching them how to possess things--like what I did with the Kermit--but that was too complicated, so I told them to try something simpler, but Ritsu can’t control his vessel. I think he’s stuck, too.” The flailing had slowly died down, and the furby--Ritsu--convulsed twice in what Mob took to be agreement that yes, that’s what had happened.
After a moment of staring intently, the furby seemed to short circuit. Its eyes went white, and then completely red.
“Nii-san! Help me, I’m stuck!” The voice was grating and robotic and terrified Mob to the depths of his being. The small worm--presumably Shou--next to Ritsu seemed to laugh, and Ritsu turned on it.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Ritsu shrieked, flopping over to fix his glowing red gaze on the offending worm.
Shou quickly moved away through a combination of inching backwards, writhing, and rolling until he reached his body, and proceeded to climb into his own mouth. After a few seconds of convincing on the part of Mob and Dimple, who had had enough of this, he stood up and spat the worm onto the floor. “Don’t worry Ritsu,” he said walking towards the furby, “I know how to get you out.” With this he raised his leg dramatically high into the air like a wild crane turned world class contortionist and began stomping the ever loving fuck out of Ritsu’s furby body.
This was a bad idea on Shou’s part.
Ritsu instantly let out an ear-splitting shriek, louder than ever before. Everything in the room started to float as he lost control of his powers. Dimple and Mob both stepped away, covering their ears, but Shou was undeterred; in fact, Mob was pretty sure he’d started screaming too, although it was hard to tell through all the noise.
Mob was done with their bullshit. He expanded his powers through the room, freezing the floating objects, as well as Shou and Ritsu. He forcibly ripped Ritsu’s soul out of the furby and shoved it back in his body before setting everything back down in its rightful place and finally relaxing his grip on the room. Ritsu sat on the floor, looking dazed, while Shou stared down at the seemingly lifeless furby with suspicion, slowly backing away. After a moment, Ritsu saw the furby and lunged at it, shoving it deep into the back of his closet, never to be seen again…
Or so everyone assumed.
***
Present-day Ritsu was still panicking over supposedly killing his best friend. Thoughts of jail time and hiding the evidence raced through his head… that is before he caught a glimpse of something that flipped the whole situation on its head.
A small rat cowering behind his brothers leg, staring intently at Ritsu.
“You fool,” Ritsu was practically cackling as he stared at the rat, “You think I didn’t prepare for this?”
The rat cocked its head to the side before its eyes widened in horror and it took a step back.
“No,” it said in Shou’s voice, “you don’t mean…?”
Ritsu was already pulling it out of his backpack. It was long, almost comically so--dear god, did he make it longer?--and Shou’s worst fears were confirmed; yes, it was that same long furby.