Chapter Text
Council Meeting
The room was empty. Well, ignoring the group of espers, of course. There was no furnature except a large round table with enough chairs for everyone, which was basically it.
Most of the psychics were chatting with each other, telling stories of the craziest exorcisms they had in the past few days since the last meeting or exchanging the latest gossip.
Not Kageyama, though. Shigeo Kageyama, also called Mob by most people. His black gaze wandered around the room, memorizing everything for the at least fifth time.
"Hey Shigeo, don't you want to sit with us?"
Good grief.
Mob looked to his right, where his brother, Ritsu Kageyama, sat. He was talking to a few of the other espers, to Shigeos surprise.
It was not too long ago that his little brother found out that he also had powers, something he envied his older sibling for for years. Still, he managed to befriend most of the other psychics, maybe even more so than Shigeo himself.
Well, my brother was always good in socializing, I shouldn't be caught off guard by that.
"No, thanks", he said politely.
"I'll wait until Suzuki-san arrives, it would be rude to start the meeting without him."
Ritsu raised an eyebrow, then noded and turned away.
At least he didn't bother asking any more questions.
Only a couple of minutes after, the door opened and a tall, broad man with a buzz-cut entered the room, with a smile on his face as always. Shou Suzuki.
"Greetings, everyone!"
He took a seat in between Ritsu's left habdside and annother esper, whose name Mob didn't even bother to memorize, and looked at the crowd of psychics around the table. Mob quietly sat down next to Ritsu as well, instead on Ritsus right handside.
"What did you call this meeting for?", someone asked, before Suzuki could even say anything.
"I think we should get straight to the point", he responded in a calm yet optimistic tone.
"It's our duty as fully-trained, or at least controlled espers", he shot a glance at ritsu, who never really had a mentor, because he discovered his powers so late, "to train younger psychics. Although many of you already have apprentices, we have far too little. So, to follow the COP rules, we have to now officialy begin to find trainees to coach."
Mob stared at the wall, like he always does when he's thinking something through. It indeed was in the tradition of COP, the Council Of Psychics, to have a cast, consiting of espers, each training an apprentice, every decade, so that they could replace their mentors after their 5 to 10 years of practice and annother 5 to 10 years of working together with the older espers as an individual psychic.for more experience. experience.
All the older espers, which are those, who spent more than 5 years in COP, like Mob, who already spent 6 years in this organisation, have to get themselves a trainee when the leader, in this case Suzuki, says that they need new lerners, usually around the end of each decade, like this time.
Shigeo shivered at the thought of having an apprentice. Kids are noisy, especially middle-schoolers, the targeted group for the new generation of espers, and stubborn. It will be difficult to teach them something, because they never listen and only care about themselves, and the money they're making by training to become a full-psychic. Not only that, Mob is also really bad at conversations.
Good grief, there must be a way out of this!
So he raised his voice to ask Suzuki a question, something he usually doesn't, thanks to his quiet and calm nature.
"Suzuki-San, what will happen if we don't get ourselves a trainee?"
The ginger esper turned his head around, so that his ice-blue, intimidating eyes could stare directly into Mobs soul. He smiled warmly, but his tone was slightly passive aggressive, although it was quite calm, it was the implied threat of his words which caused him to sound so scary.
"Oh? Everyone who can't get an apprentice until the end of next month, will get fired", he said a little louder so that everyone could hear.
Mob held back a gulp.
What? Fired? But...
The leader was usually pretty kind, but he never let his hope and happiness stop him from being strict, to make his co-workers follow the rules of the council and make them achieve their goals.
Shigeo knew very well that he couldn't get away with it, so he let out a sigh.
Fine. Whatever.
After saying good-bye to his brother and a few other members of COP, Mob went back to his office.
He and the other espers worked at psychic-related jobs, to attract other people with supernatural abilities. Shigeo didn't mind centering his job around his psychic powers, although he sometimes still has the dream to do something completly unrelated to his powers, but still something impressive, like art or playing instruments, a wish he has since elemtary school, a notion that faded with each year passing by, until only crumbs of it left, which felt more like nonsense instead of something achieveable, like it used to.
Mob worked at an Office named "Spirits and Such". He decided to do exorcism-related stuff, because it was the easiest thing to do with his powers, nothing that needed to much to worry or think about. It was also interesting to meet different spirits sometimes, learning about their past lives, the family and friends they left behind, the dreams they could never achieve. Talking to the ghosts was way more fun than deleting them from existence. That way, Shigeo could train his ability to talk to others, while also not using his powers, which he liked a lot.
He didn't always have a choice though, so he had to exorcise the spirits anyways, when they were too evil, for example.
"Hey shigeo, where ya goin'?"
The sound of the familiar voice brought Mob back to reality. He looked up, to see a green, floating, gas-like entitiy.
"Dimple, isn't it obvious that I'm heading to the office?"
This was a ghost that Shigeo met on one of his exorcisms. He was one of the first spirits that Mob talked to instead of killing, because he begged Shigeo not to exorcise him, and Mob didn't want to be a bad person, so since then this green fella has been following the esper around, making him a loyal, thankful and funny companion.
Dimple rolled his eyes. "Jeez, sorry, didn't know you were so sassy today, mister edgy-man", he replied, his tone having a sarcastic edge to it.
Then his face became a little more serious but also kinder, as he continued, "How did the meeting go?"
"Nothing extraordinary, really", Mob replied, walking to his office, "We need to find a new trainee, that's all."
The spirit stopped floating next to his master and made a horrified expression with his face. "A...trainee?!" he frowned, "but...that's so much work!"
"I know, right?", Shigeo said without any emotion, which made him sound kind-off sarcastic, "But other than that, it should be pretty easy."
Dimple looked as unconvinced as Mob felt, but he didn't argue, probably because he knew that Shigeo wasn't exactly fascinated by this idea as well.
Welcome to the world of espers
Only a few days went by since the council meeting. Mob was sitting in his office, answering emails from customers on his laptop, while occasionally taking a sip from his Cappuccino.
The drink made him think of how he used to love milk more than any other drink back in the old days, but now he cannot survive a single day without caffeine.
A knock at the door brought him back from his nostalgic thoughts. Must be a new customer, although they usually don't come at this time, which is why Shigeo uses it as his coffee break. "Yeah?" he called.
I really need to install a bell or something. Knocking on the door isn't always loud enough for me to hear.
It took a few heartbeats until the door finally opened, just a little, creating a little space, enough to let a small head with ginger hair peak through it.
A child? Did his parents send him?
"U-uhm excuse me, Sir?", the little kid shyly squeaked, "Are you a psychic?"
"Uhm, yeah."
Now the kid opened the door a little further, making enough room for him to go through. He stepped inside, still looking unsure.
"What's the matter, kid?", Mob asked, "also, where are your parents or guardians? Do they know I can't take exorcism requests from children?"
"Uhh, I-I'm not here for the exorcisms!"
"Oh?"
"I, Reigen Arataka, the greatest psychic of the 21st Century, want to become your apprentice specifically!"
It took shigeo a few seconds to remember the thing with the trainees. How could he forget?
As soon as he came back to his office, he printed out a few "looking for an esper apprentice"-posters and placed them around Seasoning City. Afterwards he forgot about this thing entirely.
His eyes went back to Arataka, who sat down on the chair across the table.
The kid went to Salt Middle-School, something Shigeo knew because he recognized the uniform the boy was wearing. There was nothing special about him except his ginger hair and dark brown eyes.
"So, you want to become my apprentice?", Shigeo asked, tilting his head a little.
The middle-schooler nodded eagerly. "Yes, Sir!"
"Alright, then. Why did you decide to apply to 'Spirits and Such' specifically, instead of any other esper business around the town."
"Uhm, well, exorcism sounds fun!"
"Ah..."
"And it's also not too far away from my home and my school!"
"Alright. How old are you?"
"I'm 12, Sir."
12 was the minimum for esper apprentices, so it was fine.
"Good. Tell me though...what caused you to want a job? Pure curiosity or did your parents tell you to? Are your powers uncontrollable?"
"Uhm, well", Reigen shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "I-I only have spiritual powers! Which makes me a rare cause, but seeing ghosts made me always afraid to sleep alone when I was a little kid."
You're still a little kid.
"I mostly joined because my parents forced me to have a job. I didn't want to get some boring job and becoming an apprentice of a real esper and helping with exorcisms and stuff sounds so cool!", he said excited, then added a little more shyly, "And it will help me to controll...my powers... or visions.... whatever you call it."
He's a fake.
Espers of any kind always have an aura on them, and even if he claimed to be an esper without much power, he would still have at least a trace of it.
How stupid.
Should Shigeo take Reigen as his trainee anyways?
It will cause too much trouble with the COP...
If the COP finds out.
"Alright, you're hired", Mob finally declared.
Arataka blinked at him in confussion, before gasping and jumping out of his chair with joy. "Really? Thank you thank you thank you!", he screamed.
Mob gave him a little nod and continued, "we'll have our first training session tomorrow."
I can't be picky, Shigeo thought to himself, so I'll let him be my trainee, although I'll have to be very careful with him.