Chapter Text
The water in Ritsu's shoes squelches loudly with every pounding footfall that hits the sidewalk. Shigeo's cold fingers clasp his wrist and drag him onwards, eyes wide with desperation, voice strained and choked in a way Ritsu is all too familiar with.
Ahead of them lies a dark street, lit by dim, flickering street lamps that turn the puddles of water a gross, ugly shade of yellow.
Behind them lie their assailants, hot on their tails. When he listens closely enough he can hear their laughter as it bounces in between buildings and finally reaches them. The chase has been going for… for…
Well, ever since Ritsu could remember, really, but for now, this particular chase has lasted an hour.
“Ritsu—” Shigeo gasps, breathless from the sprint, “come on, we need to—”
There’s a loud slam! behind them, and a shockwave catches Ritsu and Shigeo by the ankles and propels them forward, off their feet. Ritsu catches himself on his hands and knees, snapping his teeth together to keep from crying out. Shigeo rolls on his shoulder and gets his feet underneath him like he’s done it a million times.
… Actually, that’s probably true.
“Stay here,” Shigeo whispers harshly, and not even the waver of his voice can take away the intensity of his tone. “This… this won’t take long.”
It’s raining again.
Ritsu nods shakily, pushing himself up on his hands and knees. The droplets that had been seconds ago seeping through his shirt vanish, and around him shimmers a translucent dome, tinted blue-violet when he focuses on it long enough and hard enough. Shigeo stands outside of it, back to Ritsu, head facing forward.
One of their attackers—tall, slim, with a bright red afro like a circus clown—steps into the light of the nearest street lamp, basking his entire frame in an eerie yellow glow. He has a barrier, too. Ritsu can see it shimmering in the crude light, and rain hits and rolls down its sides like droplets on a car window, speeding too fast.
“Y’know,” he says, in a tone that sends chills spiraling down Ritsu's spine, “it’d be a lot easier if you kids just stopped running already.”
Shigeo sides one foot out in front, the other behind. “It’d be a lot easier if you stopped chasing us, too.”
The psychic cackles. “You know as well as I do we ain’t gonna give up,” he drawls, stepping out of the light and towards them, closer. He has a knife in one hand and a bat in the other. “We’ve been playing this game for too long. If ya come quietly, I won’t even need to—”
Shigeo lifts his foot and slams it into the ground.
The street trembles like an earthquake had rocked it, and a large crack snapd the asphalt in two. Smaller cracks spread from the biggest one, branching out like cobwebs until finally the trembling ceases and their assailant’s eyes are wide.
A moment later, that dumbfounded shock morphs into a grotesque, amused grin.
“What, really?” he asks, white teeth gleaming in the streetlamp. “S’that all you’ve got?”
“It’s a warning, actually.”
The rain soaks Shigeo's dark hair but does nothing to extinguish the fire in his eyes. It could be Ritsu’s imagination, or maybe just the rain, too, but his shoulders are trembling. “Please. Leave us alone.”
Their assailant's smile doesn’t fade. Ritsu feels sick.
“If you want me to leave you alone so badly, you’re gonna have to stop me yourself.”
He charges, and Shigeo races to meet him.
Lights flare as the assailant gears up for battle. Long, whip-like tendrils stretch from his hands and he cracks them at his sides, grinning madly, eyes narrowed and brimming with twisted glee. The psychic whips glow a yellow so bright they make the street lamps look like tainted old paint.
Shigeo runs and leaps at him, fearless, and the whips crackle with energy and lash at him like hungry snakes.
With a sharp swipe of his arm, Shigeo's own powers burst forth with a wide array of winding colors and patterns. The lights encircle the whips, snap them to the ground; the assailant springs back, grin never fading and brings out the bat next.
Shigeo grinds his teeth, hits the ground skidding. His tattered, thrift-store shoes slide through puddles of rainwater.
“Y'know, you ain't bad, kid.”
He strides towards Shigeo, dragging the bat at his side.
“Too bad you couldn't just come peacefully. Would've been a lot easier on you and your brother.”
Ritsu knows what's coming next and squeezes his eyes shut, curling in on himself under Shigeo's barrier, fingers digging and tugging at his hair.
He hears the remainder of the fight. There isn't much to hear. The beginning of a retort, followed by a choked, strangled cry, a thud, a clatter… and then Shigeo is back, shoes pounding through puddles, as he lowers the barrier from around Ritsu.
He feels the rain and takes in a deep breath. Shigeo takes him by the hand, hauls him to his feet, and before Ritsu knows what's happening, he's being tugged behind his brother once again.
Something that isn't rain streaks down Shigeo's cheeks, and Ritsu doesn't dare look back.
“Ritsu? Are you okay?”
Ritsu can't remember a time when either of them were “okay.” He doesn't think there ever was one, and if there were, it happened too long ago for him to recall.
But relatively speaking, he is okay, and he nods. “I'm fine. What about you?”
Shigeo, crouched in front of him, gives an idle nod. “I'm alright.”
The answer had come too fast for there to be any real thought behind it, but Ritsu knows it's better to not question stuff like this. So he doesn't.
They're in one of their many temporary hideouts, crouched under a shelf in a ramshackle shed where hopefully Claw's scouts won't find them. It's still raining, presence made known by the sound of it pelting against the roof like machine gun bullets. What rain manages to slip through the crude rooftop gathers into dark puddles on the floor. The space under the shelf is the driest spot in the shed, and that isn't saying much.
Shigeo moves to sit beside him underneath it. His forearms are hidden by the sleeves of his tattered black hoodie, but Ritsu knows they're bandaged. He's never seen Shigeo bandaging them, but he's also never seen him without bandages.
Ritsu isn't any different of course, but he’s never the main object of his concern. Shigeo's breathing is a bit too raspy for his comfort.
“We can't stay here,” Shigeo says. They're so close that it's easy to hear his voice over the pelting rain. “They know where we are now, we have to move.”
Ritsu drags his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He has a hoodie, too, one that's even heavier than his brother's, but the cold seeps through easily and the rainwater helps nothing.
“W-When are we leaving?” Ritsu asks, and despite his best efforts at a brave face, the tremble in his voice gives him away.
Shigeo notices, but doesn't comment. Ritsu is torn between relieved and hurt. “As soon as the rain lets up. It won't be long before they regroup and come after us, but traveling in this weather isn't safe either.”
Ritsu gives a small nod in acknowledgement. Shigeo stretches out one hand to the air in front of them; a barrier materializes from thin air, encasing Ritsu and Shigeo under its dome. It's harder to see now with nearly no light source, but its shimmer is so familiarly Shigeo that he couldn't possibly miss it.
“You should sleep,” Shigeo says quietly, dropping his hand into his lap. “I'll wake you when it's time to move.”
“You took the first shift last time,” Ritsu objects, turning to face him. “Besides, you just fought those Claw guys, right? You need it more than I do.”
Shigeo's smile is so tight and exhausted that, for a moment, it kind of makes him want to cry. “Someone needs to keep the barrier up, Ritsu.”
He can't argue. Even if he tried, there's nothing to be said that hasn’t been said before. This argument is one they’ve had over and over, nearly every night. The outcome never changes.
“Then… then I'll stay up with you!” he tries, voice breaking on the end. “It'll be easier to stay awake if I'm with you, right?”
“It's a waste. If you can sleep, you should.”
“Shige—”
“Ritsu. Please don't fight me on this.”
He wants to. He wants to and is ready too. But Shigeo just sounds so tired that every ounce of fight is sapped from him. In the end, he doesn't have the heart.
“Fine.” He grabs his backpack from beside him, tears it open, digs through, “but you're taking the blanket.”
In the same breath he's yanked it from the backpack and hurled it at Shigeo's face. Shigeo yelps, more out of surprise that hurt, but Ritsu stubbornly pretends not to acknowledge it and curls up on the floor. Uncomfortable, maybe, but at least it's dry and safe (for now).
“Goodnight, Shige.”
He hears a sigh, but he can also hear the smile in his voice when he answers, “Goodnight, Ritsu.”
He dreams of a sunlit field, with grass overgrown and a forest of evergreen surrounding them, enclosing them, protecting them.
There aren't any bandages or assailants or tattered backpacks. No smelly alleys, no worn-down shacks, no taste of rain. No clouds to blot out the sun. No fear to swallow them whole.
If just in his head, if just for a moment, they're free.
“Ritsu. Ritsu. Wake up.”
“Wassit…?” He pushes himself up on his hands and knees, a blanket slipping from around his shoulders. Shigeo is crouched by him, withdrawing his hand. “Shige…?” It catches up with him. He’s suddenly far more awake than before. “What's wrong?”
“The rain stopped,” Shigeo replies, voice laced with urgency. “They know we're here. We need to go, now.”
Shigeo takes him by the arm and pulls him to his feet, and once they've packed their things and double-checked to make sure there'd be no trace left, out they go, into the night. Ritsu sticks close to Shigeo's side, and his barrier encircles them both the whole way.
It isn't always Claw. Sometimes they're running from ordinary people. Good people, people with good intentions, people who mean well but could never understand. Shigeo and Ritsu spend the week hidden and use weekends to raid what thrift stores they can with what money they have, which is never enough. But people take pity on them, lend them cash they could never repay. It's frustrating to think about it that way. Shigeo is always more upset about it than Ritsu.
“I promise we'll find some way to make this up to you,” Shigeo says that following afternoon, as he bows lowly to an older lady who's given them their missing yen. “Thank you so much.”
“You can make it up to me by staying out of trouble,” she answers with a smile, and though her tone is lighthearted enough, there's an edge to it that betrays her concern. “Be careful, now, alright?”
It takes Ritsu's hand on his forearm before Shigeo backs out of his bow, and they set out shortly thereafter with a plastic bag of two cheap T-shirts and a pair of shoes.
Ritsu wonders what ordinary people with ordinary lives think of him and his brother, but can never muster the courage to ask.
They head downtown and to their little spot in an alley, where they've been camped since the day they were attacked by Afro-Guy. It's Saturday, which means the city is bustling, but civilians don't trust alleyways and it's perfect for them; the less they're interacted with, the better.
“We should be okay here tonight,” Shigeo says, slinging his one-strap backpack off his shoulder and onto the alley's floor. “We’ll jump to another city tomorrow.”
That's their life, now. Ritsu can't actually remember a time when it wasn't.
They manage a cheap lunch off convenience store snacks, and once that's out of the way, they make camp in what has to be the dreariest, loneliest alley in the entire city. There's an overflowing dumpster emitting some godawful stench, but not a rat in sight. Maybe they're repulsed by it, too. He wouldn't blame them.
Ritsu sits himself down against the wall with a long, heaving sigh. Shigeo pitches the barrier overhead, checks around the corner for good measure, and then takes his own seat right beside him. Ritsu doesn't miss the small sigh of relief that escapes him the moment he's off his feet.
He bites his lip, debates how cooperative Shigeo is likely to be, then decides it doesn't matter and goes for it.
“Shige, you really should sleep.”
Shigeo doesn't bat an eye. “I'll sleep once we've jumped cities.”
“You'll run yourself into the dirt before we have a chance to if you keep this up,” Ritsu tries, borderline desperate. He isn't even angry or annoyed at this point, just scared. “Shige, please. I… I'm worried about you. You can't keep going on like this, you just can't.”
Shigeo's gaze softens, and his shoulders slump with a long, tired sigh. “Okay. Okay, Ritsu. I'll sleep. Just—wake me up the second you think something might be wrong, okay?”
Ritsu nods eagerly, proud to have been trusted with this. “I won't let you down,” he swears, like his life depends on it. “Promise.”
Shigeo cracks a smile and shakes his head. “You'd have a hard time disappointing me no matter what you did, Ritsu.”
“Well, this isn't going to be a first, then,” Ritsu goes on, nodding to himself. “I'll take care of it, you go ahead and sleep for as long as you need to.”
Shigeo's smile turns softer, more genuine, and he drags up their blanket from their backpack and falls asleep almost the second he's lying down.
Ritsu takes a moment to study his face—more particularly, the dark, bruise-like crescents beneath his closed eyes and the literal bruises and scratches littering his face. The worst bruise is up by his temple; he'd taken a particularly bad hit the other day, and while he bounced back quickly, that didn't keep Ritsu from worrying. He still worries.
He makes sure the blanket is tucked securely around Shigeo's shoulders before setting his head forward, alert and ready for whatever come their way. There isn't a lot he can do without psychic powers, but he'd be damned if Shigeo can't rest at least a few hours.
He estimates about an hour has passed since Shigeo fell asleep, and Ritsu sits twirling a lock of hair around his finger while he waits the day away. His hair is longer now, down to his shoulders. Shigeo’s is, too. There’s a pair of scissors in their backpack, and Ritsu wonders if he’d be able to chop it off himself, but decides to wait for Shigeo to wake up. And they should probably wait until after they’ve city-jumped before taking on a new look of any kind.
He longs for something to do, longs for something with which he can entertain himself. He wonders if Shigeo always feels this lonely when keeping watch. If he thinks about it for too long, he winds up feeling empty, so he tries not to dwell on it.
The city bustles around him. People pass the alleyway without a single thought, going about their normal, ordinary lives as normal, ordinary people. He envies them. Wishes he and his brother could be more like them. But that leaves him empty, too, so he doesn't dwell on that either.
He sighs.
Something snags him by the ankle and yanks him hard.
Before he knows what's happening he's being dragged across the cement, flailing arms grasping their backpack while trying to find something to grab onto. It doesn't slow him down, and he's yanked and slingshotted across the asphalt until he skids to a stop in the middle of the street, sun beating down on him and lungs paralyzed.
“We were starting to think we'd lost you brats,” gawks a voice from above. “When are you two gonna learn that running only hurts you in the end, huh?”
A foot slams into his ribs. His back hits the asphalt. Fingers encircle his neck and squeeze, tight at first then even tighter. The assailant’s face—silhouetted by the sun behind him, a dark, murky shadow, contorted by a sick, twisted smile—is inches away from his own.
Ritsu can’t breathe.
“You have so much more potential than your brother,” hisses the assailant, far too close to his face. Ritsu claws and thrashes, trying to break himself free, but he’s only held tighter. “Yes… your potential shines brighter than the stars at night…”
His vision is tunneling, spiraling down like a ticking clock.
“Just because you weren’t born a psychic doesn’t mean you don‘t have it in you to become one.”
Hecan’tbreathehecan’tbreathehecan’tbreathe—
“I’ve heard they can develop under extreme, traumatizing circumstances… like this one, perhaps. What do you think, kid?”
I’mgoingtodieI’mgoingtodieI’mgoingtodie—
A laugh, low and close while the rest of the world falls away. “Or maybe we’ll just torture you instead.”
Ritsu’s fingers, scrambling for purchase, for anything, snag around the pair of scissors in their backpack. He retracts his arm, grinds his teeth, battles against the numb, tingling of his limbs and sinks the blades of the scissors right into his leg.
He feels the spray of blood on his hand. The impact and the pressure as the blades sink deep. The attacker’s face contorts again and a vicious, blood-curdling screech tears from his throat as he stumbles back, and Ritsu chokes and heaves, rolling over on his side and coughing, gasping, hacking, trying to get his breath back. He’s only half successful. He feels like he just swallowed rocks.
The scissors clatter to the asphalt with a clang of metal. Distantly, Ritsu hears passersby screeching, cars skidding to sudden halts. Most importantly, he hears the psychic’s ragged, enraged breath. He hears it so clearly that he can almost feel it against the back of his neck.
“You damn brat, you’re going to regret that!”
Ritsu looks over his shoulder, just in time to watch a bout of sickly-green light burst from his attacker’s hand and tear through the distance between them, closing it millisecond by millisecond, until it’s too close, it’s right there, it’s going to hit me, I’m going to die—
He ducks his head in his arms and curls in on himself, bracing for the impact.
There is an impact, just not the one he’d been expecting. He hears the slam, he hears the blast, but it doesn’t reach him. He doesn’t even feel the wind.
His head snaps up and he sees Shigeo’s back, outstretched hand, hair blown back in the breeze of the explosion. His barrier—a very familiar, comforting, shimmering nothing—glows bright purple as though electrically charged, and in the face of it, the blast by their assailant does nothing at all.
The blast dissipates. The ringing in Ritsu’s ears dims as the panic ebbs away. There are still people screaming all around them, shouting and hollering and screeching for help, but none of that matters now.
“N-Nii-san—”
Shigeo releases a heaving rush of breath and keeps breathing that way, shoulders rising and falling with each gasp. “Thank goodness.” He’s completely breathless. He doesn’t lower his hand. “I made it in time.”
Ritsu’s throat burns with a combination of strain, pain and tears gathering in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t speak again. He doesn’t like the aura Shigeo is emitting. It doesn’t scare him for the reasons it should; he isn’t scared of Shigeo, he could never be, just… scared for him.
The Claw pulls himself upright, blood running down his leg, bloody scissors cast aside nearby. There’s no smile to be seen on that haggard face of his, only twisted rage and gnashing, snarling teeth.
“You’re gonna pay for that, both of you,” he hisses, like a brood of threatened cobras. He takes a staggering step forward, limping so badly that someone could possibly mistake him for a zombie. “Just wait until I—”
His face slams into the asphalt. A passerby screams but Shigeo doesn’t flinch. The Claw is then dragged up by his ankle, still conscious but smug grin wiped clean from his face, replaced by a bloody nose and dazed, pained eyes. He hangs upside-down in mid-air, with Shigeo’s bright aura surrounding his foot.
“You can stay there,” Shigeo says, turning around. “Come on, Ritsu.”
He takes Ritsu by the arm, pulls him to his feet, and leads him away. The Claw regains himself and shouts a muffled something back at them. Ritsu turns and looks over his shoulder, just in time to watch him get decked into the asphalt a second time. Shigeo’s yank at his arm pulls his attention away. He doesn’t look back again.
They city-jump then and there, instead of waiting until the next evening like they’d planned. They’re in Tokyo now, a good couple of cities from where the attack took place. By the time they find an alley to settle down, night has fallen and the city is bathed in darkness. The only light comes from unnatural sources; headlights of cars as they pass by, indoor lights of 24 hour convenience stores, Tokyo Tower way off in the distance.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” Shigeo says, facing him, winding gauze around his arm. It’d scraped the asphalt when he was yanked forward by that Claw; he hadn’t noticed it before, and they hadn’t had time to stop and take care of it until now. “I never should've left you on your own like that…”
“I-It’s not your fault,” Ritsu tries, but he already knows his words will change nothing. Shigeo hasn’t even made eye contact with him since the incident. “I should’ve been able to do more.”
Shigeo doesn’t answer. He ties off the bandages, sits back, swallows hard. “Is…” He gets stuck on the words a little and gestures to his own throat. Instinctively, Ritsu’s hand comes up to massage his. He got a glimpse at the bruises while washing the blood from his hands at the sinks in a public restroom, and they’d looked awful then. He doesn’t want to think about how awful they look now, after they’ve had more time to develop.
“I’m fine,” he says, voice breaking only some. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I promise.”
Shigeo looks down at his hands, wrung tightly together in his lap. His nod is stiff and about as reassuring as a gutpunch, and he pulls their blanket from the backpack before packing their humble stash of medical supplies and zipping it shut.
He tosses the blanket to Ritsu. “It’s late. Get some sleep.”
Ritsu looks down at the blanket in his lap, guilt bubbling like boiling poison in his chest. Shigeo turns his head toward the end of the alley and holds his gaze there, eyes set in stone, body near motionless.
Ritsu swallows hard, wincing only slightly as his battered throat protests. “Sh-Shigeo, I’m sor—”
“Not now, Ritsu.” Shigeo lifts a hand without looking at him; the barrier leaps at his command, sealing them off from the rest of the world. “Go to sleep.”
Ritsu’s words die in his throat and any shard of composure he could’ve had shatters like cracked class. Shigeo’s barrier is more noticeable than it’s ever been, a bright, shimmering purple cutting through the rest of the alleyway. Even now, Shigeo still refuses to look at him.
Another swallow and Ritsu pulls the blanket around him and curls on the asphalt, chest tight and getting tighter, eyes burning alongside the tears in his throat. There’s nothing left to be said. Nothing he can say.
The night passes in silence, and neither of them sleep.