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It takes Dimple what feels like aeons to break free from Mogami’s mindscape. When he’d first been devoured, it had been early in the morning. It’s night now—Dimple looks out a dilapidated window and sees the moon hanging high in the sky, nearly full. The only light in the room comes from its pale beams, illuminating his meager surroundings.
Mogami’s spirit is still nearby. Dimple can feel his energy, thick and oppressive. He watches from the window as the esper-turned-evil-spirit floats out onto the street and seamlessly folds himself into the body of some poor passerby. The young man shudders, stalling in place, before an eerie grin creeps across his face. Mogami struts off, apparently pleased with his new puppet, and Dimple frowns. Mogami’s dark energy is fading from the room, but something impossibly powerful still lurks within the house, to his surprise. The aura he senses now is clearer than Mogami’s, and far more pleasant, although it still seems as if its been bogged down by a burden of some sort.
From the looks of it, Dimple is in the attic of an abandoned house. Mogami’s corpse is hanging lifeless in the center of the room; Dimple hardly spares it a glance before floating down the stairs, intending to investigate further. Perhaps he can find the source of that aura. With any luck, it’ll be something that can help him defeat this bastard and absorb his power—then he’d be one step closer to his goal of ruling the world.
The main floor of the home is about as trashed as the attic was. A small kitchen is overflowing with unwashed dishes; a lone wooden chair has been overturned and lays beside a dingy table that has been marred by what Dimple thinks are scratch marks. He floats into the living room. An ancient TV sits on a lopsided stand, playing static. Its dim light casts upon a pathetic excuse for a couch, so worn from use that its cushions are nearly flat. It’s so covered in stains it’s nearly brown; at least, Dimple thinks it’s brown. There’s almost no natural light in this place, and no sign of a lamp anywhere.
The powerful aura is emanating from a room down the hall. Dimple drifts toward it, stalling when the shifting purples of the aura twirl around him. No attempt is made to capture him, though, so he presses forward. There’s a door hanging half off of its hinges at the end of the hall. Dimple peers inside; he sees nothing except a ratty, torn-up curtain drifting in the light summer breeze.
He enters the room and freezes. A grimy mattress is pushed into the corner of the room, resting on the even grimier floor. Upon the mattress a small lump rests, encircled by a filmy, energy-laden dome of sorts. In the pale moonlight, Dimple can hardly make out one bony, impossibly pale hand from where it’s curled around its owner’s knees, hugging them to their chest. Thick tendrils of long, matted hair obscure the person’s face. Dimple hesitates; the astonishingly powerful aura is definitely coming from this person, but he’s not certain he should disturb them.
The choice is made for him when the person unfurls themselves just enough to peer through the thick curtain of their hair, only one dark eye visible to Dimple. It’s filled with wonder and surprise as it blinks slowly up at Dimple.
“Hey,” Dimple says, simply in greeting, unsure of what else to say. He looks about the sparse, dirty room and grimaces. The person looks so small . Dimple really shouldn’t get involved—they’re probably beyond help, anyway, and yet he can’t bear to leave just yet. “What did Mogami do to you?”
The person stares blankly back at him. For a long moment, silence fills the room; Dimple has almost resolved to leave, when they finally unwind their slender arms from their knees and tuck their hair behind their ears. The face of a young boy—shit, he couldn’t be older than thirteen—stares back at him, unnervingly pale and gaunt. The kid looks like he hasn’t seen a decent meal in years. If Dimple’d had a heart, it would have shattered at the sight of the poor kid.
“S—Shi—shou,” the kid rasps, voice hoarse from disuse. Fuck. Dimple should really leave before this goes any further, but…
“Mogami is your shishou?” He asks, daring to float a little closer, just past the odd little dome the kid has encased himself in.
The boy flinches back, instinctively raising his hands over his face with a feeble whimper. Dimple freezes; the kid does, too. Then, bewildered, he lowers his hands and blinks slowly up at the spirit. Dimply may not have a heart, but he does have eyes: it doesn’t take much to see that this kid has been surviving something awful. For quite a while, by the looks of his overgrown hair and his tattered, ill-fitting clothing.
The boy nods jerkily in response. “I-I-I—” He starts, fumbling for words. He gives up after a moment, lapsing into a strained silence.
“Shit,” Dimple’s mutters, his voice softer than he’d intended. He looks into the kid’s big, mystified eyes and feels that damnable urge to help. “When was the last time you ate, kid?”
The kid’s eyes fall downward, toward his stomach, at the question. He shakes his head.
“Alright,” Dimple says, trying his best not to let the sudden, overwhelming hatred for Mogami show in his voice. This kid is more skittish than an alley cat, and the last thing he wants to do is scare him off now. “We’re gonna fix that. Can you tell me your name?”
Another shake of the boy’s head.
Dimple’s frown deepens. “You can’t?”
The kid looks up, raising one shaky hand to the pinkish-yellow dome that hangs overhead. “B-Barr—ier,” he says, his voice scraping at his throat like sandpaper. “Hurts… P-People.”
Dimple peers upward at the circle of energy encasing them and frowns. “If I promise you won’t hurt anyone, will you tell me your name?” He asks. Patience is not a trait that comes naturally to him, and he strains with the effort of holding back his usual snarky, demanding demeanor for the kid’s sake.
“N-No,” the kid says stubbornly. He points to himself, and the barest hint of wetness pools in his eyes. “D-Dan—Dangerous.”
Well, Dimple can’t deny that. The kid has the strongest aura of any esper he’s ever encountered. That’s no reason to keep him locked up and neglected, though. There are plenty of ways to learn control with psychic powers. Dimple wants to tell the kid that, but he already knows it won’t go over well. Dimple isn’t sure what Mogami seeks to gain by keeping a child imprisoned (maybe he’s feeding off of his energy?), but he has no doubt that he’s the one who fed the kid lines about being dangerous. The kid’s probably been brainwashed by him for years now—one visit from a strange spirit isn’t going to change that.
“Okay, fine,” Dimple says, “so we stay here. Is there food somewhere around?”
The kid nods. “S-S-Soup.”
“Soup, great!” Dimple gives him the most encouraging smile he can muster in the face of this gloomy, tragic existence. “Let’s make some, then.”
More damned head shaking. The kid trembles even in the hot summer night, and points toward the door that leads down the hall. “Sh-Shishou, he…”
“He’s not here,” Dimple finishes quickly. “I can keep watch, if you want. While you make some soup.”
The kid turns this idea over in his mind for several moments, and then nods. Slowly, shakily, he clambers out of bed. Dimple has trouble watching the kid stumble forward on the dirtied soles of his feet, tries not to think too much about why the kid might be limping forward on his sickly thin legs, what sort of injury Mogami had inflicted upon him.
The kid goes to the kitchen and peers around in the dark for a moment before selecting a can of old vegetable soup off of the shelf. There’s a layer of dust over the top; Dimple winces as he brushes it off. He wishes he could get this kid some better food, but interacting with the material plane in a place like this, so shrouded in the thick energies of two powerful espers, is nearly impossible. The kid selects a dusty spoon as well, and starts back to his bedroom.
“Wait, aren’t you going to heat it up?” Dimple asks, floating at his side.
He doesn't answer, just shuffles into his bedroom and collapses upon his bed as if he’d made a journey across the Atlantic rather than the hallway. The can is the type with the tab lid, so he pulls it off and immediately plunges his spoon into the gooey liquid. The boy makes a face when he eats, and so does Dimple while watching him, but he tries his best to school his expression into something encouraging whenever the kid looks up.
He makes it about halfway through the can before his shrunken stomach begins to complain that it’s full. The kid sets the can off to the side and then looks up, meeting Dimple’s gaze. He stares for a moment longer. Then, slowly, he raises a hand and points at himself. “M-Mob,” he says.
Dimple stares. The kid continues to point at himself. When the spirit doesn’t take the hint, he tries his hand at speaking again. “M-My name,” he stutters. “Mob.”
“Mob,” Dimple repeats, frowning. It’s an odd name, to say the least, but he can’t exactly be one to judge. “Call me Dimple,” he tells him.
“Dim—ple.”
“That’s it,” Dimple says, and forces a grin. “I’m gonna stick with you for now, Mob, alright? We’re gonna be a team.”
Mob looks at him, starry-eyed, for a long moment. Then, he nods. Tears have sprung to his eyes, but he hardly seems to notice. He merely curls back up in bed, blinking the tears away with tired eyes. “Dimple,” he repeats in a whisper as his eyes flutter and close.
Dimple watches, and stares, and frets. He’s going to get this kid out, somehow. Whatever it takes.