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A new client was waiting for Reigen Arataka, the greatest private investigator of the 21st century.
The potential client’s school uniform did not promise a large yen payment.
“Where’s your parents, pipsqueak?” Reigen asked, as he removed his fedora.
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe the supermarket?” the teen boy said, blinking up at Reigen.
Reigen nodded as he sat down, lighting a cigarette with one smooth, carefully practiced movement of lighter to lips.
“So what have you come to ask for?” Reigen breathed in the smoke from his cigarette and almost breathed it out, remembering at the last second that he shouldn’t blow smoke at children. He coughed it out around his own head.
“I need help with my little brother.”
Reigen leaned forward over his desk, feeling it creak a little under his weight.
“Tell me about him.”
“Ritsu? Looks like me, but taller.” The potential client brought out a photograph of two boys standing next to each other, one of them with the client’s bowl haircut, the other taller one with more fashionable spiked hair.
Reigen frowned at the photo. “I see. What exactly do you need help with?”
“Ritsu used to be a model student, on the school council. Now his grades are worse than mine, he disappears all the time, and won’t tell us where he’s going. I followed him last night. He went to an apartment block, and didn’t come out until midnight.”
Reigen smoked his cigarette, being careful to blow it off to the side.
“What’s your name?”
“Kageyama Shigeo. Most people call me ‘Mob’ though.”
“Mob. I’d be happy to take your case.” Reigen pulled out a leaflet from a desk drawer and slid it over to his potential client. “Here are my prices.”
Reigen half-expected Mob to shake his head and refuse at the sight of Reigen’s hourly charge, but the boy looked more determined.
“I have savings, Reigen sir.”
Some paperwork was filled out, and young Mob sent home with the promise of an update. Reigen lit another cigarette while he thought.
Kageyama Ritsu’s case sounded open and shut. The boy was probably visiting a girlfriend and smoking, doing whatever delinquents did these days. It would be easy enough to solve.
Reigen began one of the most boring parts of his job - the stakeout. He followed Kageyama Ritsu from school. He seemed to have no after-school clubs, which fit with what Mob told him about the boy.
Reigen kept an eye on Ritsu as he stood around with some other boys his age, moodily kicking an empty soda can among themselves. Ritsu, glancing at his watch, tossed the can aside and the boys walked on.
They walked into an alleyway. Reigen guessed what would happen, and was proven correct - there were loud crashing sounds, and the boys walked out of the alley looking cheerful and slapping each other on the back. “Cheers for that, Ritsu!”
Reigen quickly glanced into the alleyway. Several boys from another middle school were lying around, groaning in pain. Some of them seemed to have been thrown there.
Reigen wondered if the largest of Ritsu’s friends had done that. If so, then why were the group all congratulating Ritsu? He continued to follow them from a distance.
The boys had gotten into a shouting match about something. Eventually, Ritsu lifted his hand and tossed the boy he was yelling at into a tree.
Wait, what? Ritsu had supernatural powers of some kind?
Well. Reigen thought. Mob hadn’t mentioned that.
The other boys fled, leaving Ritsu to laugh at the boy he’d stuck up in the tree. The boy was yelling in fright and begging to be let down.
“Nah, rot there,” Ritsu said, and walked on.
Reigen took a roundabout route to make sure he wasn’t seen by the boy in the tree, and almost lost sight of his tail. Ritsu had gone to his family home.
Reigen waited outside, idly wondering if Mob was in there or if he had some club to go to.
Half an hour later, Ritsu was out of the house again, this time wearing a hoodie and jeans instead of his black school uniform. He walked directly to the apartment block, pushed the front door open, and disappeared inside.
Reigen lurked around the entrance of the apartment block, keeping an eye on the people going in and out while staying hidden himself. There didn’t seem to be many people, and some of them wore white coats with ID badges on the front.
Perhaps it was a place where many doctors lived? Was it near a hospital? Reigen glanced at the map he had. There was no sign of a hospital, and the people acted as if they were going to work, not coming home from it.
After four hours Ritsu appeared outside again, yawning, and slunk off. Reigen followed him back to the Kageyama home and waited until it was clear the boy had gone to sleep.
It was very late on a school night; he would ring Mob tomorrow.
The next step for Reigen to take: find out what was in the apartment building, and see how to get in.
Searching online made Reigen more suspicious. Other apartment blocks in Seasoning City had plenty of information available about them - who lived there and so on. This block had been bought by a generically-named shell corporation a year ago, and there was nothing more updated than that. Who lived there? Did anyone?
Digging into the shell corporation led to many shady places - there seemed to be a never-ending onion of corporations that owned, or ‘owned’, the building.
So was Kageyama Ritsu visiting someone? Or had he been otherwise roped into something dodgy? What was with the supernatural powers the boy had displayed?
Reigen headed to bed. These questions could be answered tomorrow.
He woke up to a missed call from an unknown number, no voicemails, which he ignored - if they were serious, they would ring back later - and headed off to his office.
The gently curling poster tacked to the Reigen P.I. office wall said ‘Reigen Arataka - The Greatest Private Investigator Of The 21st Century! All Crimes Solved!’ There was smaller text detailing his phone number, office address and rates, along with some cliparts of binoculars which Reigen thought livened up the poster.
No potential clients waiting for him today. To be fair, many of them preferred ringing or emailing. He had found so far that the clients who wanted him to follow their spouse, or meddle in other domestic matters, were more likely to have an initial visit in person; perhaps they felt safer knowing for sure that their partner or family member wasn’t going to overhear their conversation.
Reigen glanced at his printouts from last night’s work on the Kageyama case, shuffling through them.
But first, Mob. Reigen dialed the number he’d been given, and it was picked up after a couple of rings.
After the basic greetings, Mob asked him for a report. “Ritsu’s out again, and my parents are downstairs, so no-one will hear you.”
Reigen told him everything that had happened last night; following Ritsu, the alleyway fight, Ritsu throwing the boy into the tree...
Silence for a few moments. “I had no idea, Reigen sir,” Mob eventually said. He sounded horrified.
Reigen was quiet and let his client speak.
“He never told me about his powers, and doing all this with them… hurting people… it’s horrible.”
Reigen was reminded of how young Mob was.
Mob continued, “I could have helped him with them, if he’d told me! Do you think maybe someone’s misleading him? Someone he meets up with in that apartment? Because Ritsu isn’t like that. He is - used to be so good, and on the student council…”
“It’ll be fine, Mob,” Reigen lied while avoiding the question. “You clearly love him, and that counts for a lot.”
“Thank you, Reigen sir. What are you doing next?” Mob said, sounding emotional.
Reigen told Mob where he was going, and he ended the call before lighting a cigarette. He was almost out; maybe he could pick up some more on the way to the mysterious apartment building.
Superpowered brothers, maybe? Reigen pondered as he walked, pocket refilled with a fresh packet of cigarettes.
Mob had implied that he had similar powers himself. Reigen wondered what their family life must be like.
Nah, he was getting invested in someone who was just paying him for help. Reigen shook his head at himself; that led to dangerous paths.
Reigen thought of the stories he had read, the films he had seen, that had inspired him to try being a private investigator for himself. Getting invested tended to be those characters’ weak points.
There was less security at the entrance to the apartment building than Reigen had expected. Perhaps because the people who had powers like Ritsu’s were inside?
Reigen had put on a white coat over his usual suit, and he was prepared to talk his way through things like ‘needing to show ID’, but pressing a button at the front door let him in and there was no visible guard.
Reigen’s eyes flickered up at the camera focused on the doorway. He walked straight ahead, trying his best to look as if he belonged there.
The normal looking apartment door suddenly widened out to what seemed to be a large laboratory, with many people in white coats walking around. A giant screen, currently blank, was high up on the far wall.
There were some teens, around the Kageyama brothers’ age or older, sitting around a table near Reigen. He picked up a random clipboard from a desk and pretended to read it while moving near them.
The clipboard had a list of pharmaceutical drugs on it. Reigen pretended to be very focused on the long names while he strained his hearing towards the jumpsuit wearing children, who seemed to be having a heated discussion.
“What the fuck?” one girl said. “How does he think he can get out of this?”
“I dunno,” a very skinny boy said, while eating some chips. “He- oh. Oh, I see.”
Sudden silence, as one of them whispered to another.
Reigen craned his ear to listen.
All the children turned to look at him.
An alarm began to blare.
What, thought Reigen, his eyes going wide in shock.
The girl who had been swearing got up from her chair, lifting up her hand in an odd, flat palmed pose that Reigen had only seen Ritsu use in real life.
Something sparked out of the center of her palm, shooting towards Reigen and hitting his torso. He crashed to the floor and was knocked out.
____
Reigen woke up behind bars. It wasn’t the first time that had happened - and probably not the last either - but the first time he had woken up with a small crowd of children looking at him through the bars.
“I’m not a zoo exhibit.” Reigen said as he slowly sat up. That had hurt.
“You’re awake,” one of the teens said, a boy with a mass of soft teenage fuzz on his upper lip.
“Well spotted.”
Reigen sat up fully and patted his pockets. No sign of his phone or wallet, but they had left him his unopened pack of cigarettes. That was something.
He cricked his neck, wincing a little - he really needed to exercise more - and looked out at the crowd from his hard bed.
“Any adults in the room?”
“They’ve left you to us for now,” the same boy said.
Reigen looked at the crowd. Most of them looked like fairly ordinary kids, with a few punks and delinquents scattered about. Reigen guessed they weren’t ordinary. Were they all supernatural? Was that why the children were there?
“Who’s in charge?”
“Me, Kaito.”
Some of the children wandered off.
“What is this place?”
“You’ll work it out.”
This conversation was going nowhere, Reigen thought. And he couldn’t see Ritsu among the crowd - it must still be school time for him.
A kid whispered something into Kaito’s ear.
“How do you know Kageyama Ritsu?”
Reigen worked something out. “…You can read minds, can’t you?” he said to the whispering teen.
She grinned back at him.
Of course, a girl’s voice said in his mind, and Reigen jumped a little.
There were giggles from the small crowd.
We’re the chosen of Claw, the voice continued,and-
“Enough.” Kaito snapped at her out loud. “We will be having words.”
Claw. The name didn’t sound familiar to Reigen, but he noted it down in his mind.
Kaito and the other teens left soon after that, Kaito looking embarrassed at his subordinate’s behavior.
…I’m in over my head, Reigen thought. He had made a big mistake in not telling anyone but Mob where he was going. It was too much to expect the client he was being paid by to come and rescue him!
Maybe Reigen would be alright, as long as he only went up against teens? He could generally handle teens well enough, and felt reasonably confident in front of them. As long as they let him speak first, he would be fine.
Superpowered people though… Reigen shuddered at the thought and cracked open his fresh cigarette packet, realizing after he’d placed one at his lips that he hadn’t been left a lighter.
____
A few hours of boredom later, Kaito reappeared. This time he was alone except for Ritsu.
“Do you know this man? Sakura says he thought of your name.”
Ritsu looked very confused. “Never seen him before in my life.”
Kaito looked at Ritsu, judging his expression and tone, and Reigen had an idea. Maybe Ritsu was telepathic too? Kaito wasn’t, or he wouldn’t have needed Sakura the telepath to tell him what Reigen was thinking. But Sakura didn’t seem to be here at the moment.
So Reigen thought, YOUR BROTHER MOB SENT ME. TELL HIM I’M HERE, and hoped that it had worked.
There was no sign that Ritsu had heard Reigen’s mental shouting.
Kaito continued interrogating Ritsu, who looked just as frustrated as he had at the start of the conversation.
Reigen weighed over his options.
Kaito and Ritsu were walking off, when Reigen said, “Ritsu, tell Mob I’m still here!”
Ritsu turned back to stare at Reigen, an unpleasant expression on his face. “How do you know my brother?”
“Ask him,” Reigen repeated, and refused to say anything more no matter how much Ritsu yelled and rattled at his bars.
Reigen barely slept that evening. He prayed that telling Ritsu was enough, and Mob would be able to help. Even the police would have been a welcome sight - locking up a man like this wasn’t exactly legal, even if Reigen had been trespassing for information.
Around midnight, according to the clock on the wall, there were several loud crashing sounds that woke Reigen up from a doze.
There was some yelling and screaming going on, as well as sounds of running. Someone shouted “Who’s attacking?!” and was responded to with “I dunno, some strange esper!”
Mob?
The room shook as if there was an earthquake. A small figure floated through the doorway, their aura glowing as if under a blacklight.
The bars locking up Reigen were bent open under the weight of invisible pressure.
“We need to go, Reigen sir,” the being said with Mob’s voice.
The figure turned out to be Mob himself, exploding with power on a level that Reigen had never felt before.
Much later, Reigen admitted that he fell in love this second, when Mob broke him out of Claw’s cell while looking like an alien being.
In that moment, though, Reigen moved through the bent bars and stood up in front of Mob, who was still floating in midair.
Mob turned and Reigen followed him.
As soon as they were out of the room and in a hallway, Mob turned to Reigen. “Are you alright? Did they torture you or-“
“No, just locked me up.”
Mob breathed a sigh of relief, nodded and walked on.
Mob had been worried? Reigen was touched.
He broke in to get you. Of course he was worried! another part of Reigen thought.
The building had been half-destroyed by Mob, and it was surprisingly easy to get out to what had been the front door. There were still a few scientists running off, but they avoided Mob’s glowing figure.
“You did all this for me?”
“And Ritsu, Reigen sir. These people made him do horrible things.”
Speaking of, Ritsu was standing near the entrance, panting as if he just got there and glaring at them both. “You’re lucky most of the espers don’t sleep here. And you never did that for me, big brother. Why put in so much effort for some old PI you hired to sneak?”
“I’m not old!” Reigen protested.
The building behind them creaked dangerously.
Mob sent out tendrils of power to hold the hideout together.
Reigen wondered at how casual he was, destroying and then holding together a whole building. So much power in such a little body.
“I hired him for your sake, Ritsu!” Mob said. “I was really worried!”
“Oh,” was all Ritsu said before turning to Reigen. “You were stalking me! Why did you do that?”
Reigen shrugged. He hated it when a person he’d been following found out what he’d been doing. “Mob paid me.”
Though it wasn’t just the payment, a tiny and quickly repressed part of Reigen thought.
He wanted a cigarette.
Mob pulled Ritsu into a tight hug.
“It’s okay, little brother. We can teach each other now.”
Ritsu sighed into the hug, sounding emotional.
“Okay, whatever.”
“It doesn’t matter, Ritsu. You’ll always be my brother, no matter what.”
Ritsu burst into tears.
“Yes, big brother. I love you.”
Reigen awkwardly looked at the crumbling ‘apartment’ building. Best to leave the brothers alone during a moment like this.
A few moments later, a hand touched Reigen on the arm. He looked over.
Mob was smiling at him while still holding onto Ritsu. Reigen smiled back, thinking that he would have fought Claw all over again for that little smile.
Epilogue
Which he and Ritsu both did, when Claw returned with their final plan many months from then. And they both kissed Mob after they all saved Japan from President Touchirou’s grasp.
Mob kissed them both back.