Chapter Text
Was the gun too big for his hands, or were his hands too small for the gun?
For some reason, Tetsuo couldn’t think of anything else as the mutilated lackey crumpled before him. Then - where in God’s name is Akinari? The pesky son of a bitch was always scampering off mid-coup, probably looking to swipe another firearm for he and the others’ collection. In spite of the experience they all had with the things, Tetsuo couldn’t help fretting over the thought of his brother toying with that miniature armory.
“Mori-kun,” a soft voice said. Tetsuo whipped around, barrel raised - “easy, easy.” Hiromitsu laughed his booming laugh, and Tetsuo leapt into his waiting embrace.
“Where the hell have you been?” he cried, arms barely able to circumnavigate his oyabun’s neck. “You didn’t tell us you were leaving, Chichi-ue; we were worried out of our minds -”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Hiromitsu lowered the boy back onto the bloodied carpet. “It was a dangerous job, and I knew you and your brother would try to sneak along with me.”
Tetsuo sniffed petulantly. “Damn fine time for you to come back, too.”
Another laugh - “Looks like you had it all under control, though. C’mon, everybody’s down in the basement. Got some presents for the lot of you.”
“Real presents?” Tetsuo quirked a brow, grabbing Hiromitsu’s sleeve and letting the man lead him towards the staircase. “Or more mouths to feed?”
“I’m sorry; which one of us here is feeding them?” Hiromitsu scolded good-naturedly. “And both, by the way. Picked up a bunch of pork buns on the way back from the train station.”
Though he couldn’t help drooling over the thought - nobody fed the boys as well as big, hungry Hiromitsu did - Tetsuo let out a groan. “How many? Where’d they come from?”
“Just a couple kids the bad guys had running for ‘em. Took out their headquarters and - well, I couldn’t just let ‘em hang around there, could I?”
Tetsuo sighed. “You’ve never been able to, no.”
“Damn right.” Hiromitsu beamed, glanced back at the boy as they descended the stairs. “And it’s a good thing, too; else you and Akinari might still be eating rats down in the sewers, Ekubo-chan.”
Furiously, Tetsuo tried to cover the dimpled beam his oyabun had brought to his face. “I told you to quit calling me that; it’s embarrassing.”
Hiromitsu reached back to poke at one of the jolly little indentations on his junior’s cheek. “You’ll grow out of ‘em, Mori-kun. Until then, I get to make fun of ‘em all I want.” He reached up, ruffled the boy’s mess of dark hair.
***
Tetsuo Mori .
Where had that come from?
Much as sleep wasn’t a necessity for a spirit such as he, Dimple had taken to the odd nap in the sunlight on Reigen’s desk on the days he didn’t go to school with Mob; he never dreamt, and today was no exception. But that name popped into his head all the same, virtually materialized from thin air.
“Know any Tetsuos?” he asked the man seated beside him.
Reigen didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Don’t think so. The one from Akira , maybe?”
Dimple scoffed, “useless,” and Reigen stuck his tongue out in a weak-willed tease.
The spirit found himself getting increasingly more frustrated by the errant thought as minutes ticked by. He wondered - no, too much of a stretch. In all the years he’d drifted around the ethereal plane - he wasn’t sure how many - why would memories of his life begin coming about now?
He couldn’t deny that the subject had been on his mind lately, what with the jobs Mob and Reigen had been working - spirit families bound to their homes, local paranoia manifested into supernatural beasts. Dimple pondered, following the events of the latter, whether he’d come to be in the same way. It was just as well, with no memory of his supposed life as a human, but all the same -
Tetsuo .
He didn’t want this to eat away at him any longer than it had to.
“Reigen,” Dimple lifted himself from his comfortable heap on the corner of the desk, floated tensely before its owner, “I need your help with something.”
The conman raised his brows, smirked. “This is new.”
“I want to find out who I was before I died,” the spirit continued, “if anyone.”
Reigen’s humor faded; he narrowed his eyes. “If -?”
“Like the case with the urban legends,” Dimple clarified, already bubbling with anticipation. “I might not have ever been a human in the first place. I - I might not have been , period.”
Reigen leaned back in his seat, eyes glazed in their lax way. “Have you got any leads in either direction?”
“A name,” Dimple replied. When Reigen’s eyes flashed curiously: “Tetsuo Mori.”
Reigen’s hands were already flying, pulling his laptop from its place beside him, whipping it open and booting it up. “Yours?”
“Can’t imagine I’d have remembered anyone else’s.” Thoughtfully, the spirit drifted around to the desk’s opposite side, perched himself in a cautious hover by Reigen’s left shoulder.
“Have we got a time period on this? A location? Are you even from Seasoning City, or - Japan?”
Dimple shrugged exaggeratedly. “It’s a starting point, at least. Look, if I knew anything more, I probably wouldn’t be consulting the Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century for his transcendent Googling abilities.”
“Aw, buzz off.” Reigen punched their keywords in, watched as far too many unavailing Facebook profiles appeared before them - and one retrospective article from a good decade back, a recount of some missing child case in 1956.
This marks the fiftieth anniversary of the dual disappearance of Tetsuo and Akinari Mori, the article read, following the suspected yakuza attack on steel tycoon Yuuma Mori’s Seasoning City penthouse and office complex.
“Jesus,” Reigen breathed. “Any recollections of, uh… disappearing?”
Dimple only stared, little brow furrowed in consideration. Without his reply, Reigen turned away, uncomfortably tugged at his collar.
“End of the line, then,” the businessman muttered. “I’m pleased to say I haven’t got any yakuza ties to interrogate.”
Dimple gave Reigen a contemptuous glance. “Unsurprising.” All the same, there was some memory suddenly throbbing in the spirit’s head, something recent, detached - who had he possessed lately? There was that priest, Ritsu, the chubby little psychic Reigen texted every now and then…
Dimple’s form flashed with thrilled enlightenment. “But I do. Before you showed up at Claw, I possessed this security guard, and - and I remember noticing all his tattoos, and hearing those sort of ambient constants in his head, stuff about his oyabun and saiko-komon. Low-level, undoubtedly, but -”
“Wh-what were you doing possessing a security guard?”
“Protecting the kids, obviously! Anyways, let’s track the guy down - Takuya-something. I’m sure we could find his files, as a start -”
“Dimple,” Reigen interjected, face wan with worry, “I am a very small, very physically-unfit, well-to-do young man. I don’t think I’m equipped to ‘track down’ and chat with a bunch of yakuza toughs.”
“Young, huh?” Dimple snorted. “Quit bein’ such a baby, Reigen; it’s only one guy. He’ll be able to see me, too, so you won’t have to do any talking.”
Reigen rubbed his chin with his thumb, lips pursed. “This really means that much to you?”
Dimple blinked.
“Yeah, that’s a dumb question,” Reigen muttered, clapping his hands over his knees to stand laboriously from the desk chair. “Alright, give me a minute.”
To the spirit’s perplexion, the pseudo-psychic disappeared into the other room and, about five minutes later, returned clad in a black suit, tie, and sunglasses.
“Whaddya think?” Reigen grinned. “Little more intimidating, right?”
Dimple tried and failed to stifle a bout of laughter, to which Reigen responded with a chastising flick to the little cloud’s cheek before drawing up his cell phone.
“Do you still remember where this place is?”
“Vaguely. Its aura should still be strong enough to follow once we make it out of the city,” Dimple replied, wiping a blissful tear from the corner of his eye. “You’re calling a cab?”
“Banshomaru’s got a car,” Reigen said, “and he won’t get all weirded out like the driver I had take me to Claw last time. Gotta call the kid first, though.”
The phone rang a few times, and then - “Hey, Mob; glad I caught you. No need to come in today, alright? Dimple and I have everything covered.” A pause, and a chuckle, then - “Yeah, I suspect we’ll need all the luck we can get. Take care.” He hung up, satisfied, and turned back to his ethereal companion. “You ready to go?”
“Not yet; still have to get into black tie attire,” Dimple sneered. “ Obviously I’m ready.”
Reigen failed to hide his grin, punched Banshomaru’s number into his keypad. “Asshole. I think I look cool.”
***
Hiromitsu was behind his great oaken desk, as always, nibbling on a dumpling and filing through what looked like a folder of counterfeit bills. The saiko-komon standing dutifully in the corner of the room eyed Tetsuo as he came in.
“Oyakata-sama,” Tetsuo managed, fists clenched at his sides. Hiromitsu looked up, a sort of worried grin suddenly slapped across his face.
“Goodness, what formality,” the oyabun uttered. “What’s the matter, Mori-kun?”
Tetsuo stepped closer to the desk, head bowed in respect. Even the saiko-komon blinked curiously at the child’s uncharacteristic self-subjugation. “I want to be tattooed.”
Hiromitsu paused, mouth agape, then laughed.
“My boy, of course. I’m so relieved; that look on your face was awfully grave.” He stood from his chair, strolled around the other side of the desk to pull his smiling disciple into his arms. “You are a bit young, though, Ekubo-chan. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“You told me you started getting yours at fourteen, Chichi-ue,” Tetsuo snapped, a finger jabbed up in his oyabun’s face. “That’s only a year older than me. I am sure.”
Unassumingly, Hiromitsu raised his hands. “Alright, alright. What’d you have in mind?”
Tetsuo smiled up at his guardian and took a deep breath. “A lotus bud. Right here.” He placed the flat of his palm against the upper left corner of his collar.
“Not a tiger? A terrifying dragon? Even a lotus blossom ?” Hiromitsu wasn’t doing a very good job of concealing the gleam in his eyes; Tetsuo was overjoyed to see him so pleased, much as he wasn’t surprised.
“No,” Tetsuo shook his head slowly. “I’m going to grow into the greatest garden you’ve ever seen, Chichi-ue; even more vibrant than yours.”
Hiromitsu laughed. When he reached up to run a hand through his cropped hair, swipe a great finger over his teary eye, hints of vines and foliage peeked out from beneath his shirtsleeve.
“I don’t doubt it, Mori-kun. I’ll call for the horishi tomorrow.”
***
“The turnoff’s up ahead, on the right,” Dimple informed their chauffeur.
Banshomaru sniffed. “What the hell kind of meeting place is this, Reigen? Middle of the woods, up in the foothills - looks downright nefarious.”
“The man we’re ‘meeting’ might not even be here,” the taller man admitted, a hopeless shadow starting to fall over his face. “Really, Dimple, what are the chances this one Claw security guard’s still stalking around the grounds two months after we wrecked everything?”
“Two months after you wrecked everything,” Dimple corrected him. “We’re just looking for leads. The entire headquarters wasn’t totally destroyed, anyways; I can’t fathom a few lackeys wouldn’t stick around to close up shop.”
Banshomaru slowed his pace as they veered off down a dirt road, then back onto asphalt. Half the facility’s front gate stood before them, its dilapidated building a ways ahead.
“And if we don’t find anything?” Reigen asked, turning to the spirit hovering on the dashboard.
Dimple glared at him. “We’ll find something.”
Banshomaru pulled as far down the decimated drive as his car would let him, finally stopped in front of a felled tree. “This is as close as I can get you, I’m afraid. Should I wait?”
“If we’re not back in twenty minutes, head out. I’ll be in touch,” Reigen replied. He pushed his door open, climbed out, called back, “thanks again, Banshomaru.”
The smaller psychic gave the duo a well-wishing wave as they pressed on beyond the property’s initial wreckage, lost sight of the car beyond what was once one of the great concrete monolith’s walls.
“I can’t tell ya how bummed I am to have missed all this,” Dimple cracked a smirk, gesturing around them. “The thought of you wielding anything more than your typical fool’s gold magic…”
Reigen let out a little laugh, evidently opting not to take offense. He stepped over a hunk of girder-spiked cement and replied, “it was an awe-inspiring display. Hell, ask Ritsu; even he’d call it impressive.” The pseudo-psychic sighed, gazing around the abandoned husk of a facility. “I used to envy Mob. I mean, feeling like that twenty-four-seven - I can’t imagine.”
Dimple sniffed in agreement. The spirit was tempted to mourn the fact that the kid still hadn’t let him take his hyper-powered body out for a joyride, but something told him Reigen wouldn’t be too keen on the sentiments.
Somewhere beyond another mound of rubble sounded the clatter of tumbling stones; Dimple and Reigen froze.
After a still second, the pair carried on, Reigen creeping over in cautious steps and Dimple hovering at his shoulder. They held their breaths as they crested the peak of concrete - and then, with luck that was not lost on either of them, happened to lock eyes with none other than a lanky, dark-haired man, dressed down in black slacks and a white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His forearms, frozen in the act of shoveling through stone, were painted with patterns of black, red, and green, and Reigen barely had the chance to notice that he was strikingly attractive before the guard was scrambling over tiers of broken partitions and shouting something unintelligible.
“Wh-what did you -”
“I said ‘behind you!’”
Then there was a hand on Reigen’s collar, yanking him back into the crook of the tattooed arm that was not smacking Dimple so hard the spirit flew a good hundred feet backwards, crashed into the earth with a fantastic clamor.
“Figured that little shit’d still be lurking around here,” the guard snarled, ignoring Reigen writhing in his grasp. “There was an evil spirit following you, dude.”
“He’s my evil fucking spirit, you -” the man was looming over him like a skyscraper - “y-you - big -” Reigen collected himself. This was no time to get flustered, be it out of intimidation or something a bit more embarrassing. He sprung from the man’s hold, frantically dusted off his blazer. Over his shoulder, a shout: “Dimple, you good?”
In the distance, a weak green light rose shakily from the dirt, stuck out a half-hearted thumbs up.
“He’s with me,” Reigen reiterated. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go throwing him around when we’ve got business with which to attend.”
The man cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “Business? Out here? Buddy, you must have the wrong address.”
Reigen sneered. “That’d be Reigen, thanks.” He stuck out a hand, and the guard tentatively shook. “You must be -”
Dimple had made his way back over, and settled himself grouchily in the crook of Reigen’s shoulder. “Takuya,” he scowled, “wasn’t it?”
The guard pulled his hand away, glaring down at the spirit. “Can’t say I’m pleased to see you again, Dimple.” He turned back to Reigen. “Who are you? What the hell kind of business have you got out here, and with that - that thing?”
“Reigen Arataka, Greatest Psychic of the Twenty-First Century and owner of Spirits and Such consultation agency,” Reigen replied, coolly slipping his fingers into his pockets. “Typically a vendor of exorcisms, the occasional massage - but currently on an unconventional assignment, as it happens.”
Takuya crooked a brow.
“We’re looking for someone,” Reigen continued, “and Dimple seemed to think you’d have useful connections.” The conman glanced casually down at Takuya’s tattoos, exposed and clear now in their symbolic nature: snakes and rose vines curling up his arms in rich, unfaded hues. “Based on those , I’d say he was right.”
At this comment, Takuya actually laughed. “Well, now you’ve got me real curious. Who’s the person of interest?”
Reigen and Dimple exchanged a glance.
“Tetsuo Mori,” Dimple said, “or - any relations, rather. Descendants. People who knew him. Considering the circumstances around he and his brother’s disappearance, I assumed your circle -” he waved a hand at the tattoos - “might be the right place to start.”
Takuya looked between the two of them, smile gone as quickly as it had come and expression unreadable.
He lurched forward, hooked an elbow around Reigen’s neck.
“Dimple!” was the one thing the psychic could spit before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp in Takuya’s arms.
“Don’t you fucking touch him!” Dimple snarled, hurling himself forward and straight into Takuya’s head. He wasn’t surprised to be met with furious resistance, but the guard’s subconscious was no match for him, and it took Dimple no less than ten seconds to have it beaten into submission, take full control over the guard’s body.
“Reigen!” The spirit jostled his companion, taking a knee to grab Reigen by the chin - but the conman was out cold.
“Fuck,” Dimple hissed. How the hell were they going to get in with the yakuza now, with this necessary asset useful as a paperweight and Takuya unable to work his -?
Oh.
Dimple would’ve laughed at his foolishness if he weren’t already preoccupied with rooting around Takuya’s head. His car - something black, shiny, ferociously fast - was parked in what was left of the backlot; his syndicate’s headquarters were on the river, back in Seasoning City’s industrial district. Hell, he even had a prop - a nosy sleazebag of a businessman, apprehended in his attempts at investigation into private matters. All Dimple had to do was play it cool, maybe tie Reigen up somewhere he couldn’t get in the way, then go ahead with his search.
What a stroke of luck! The spirit thought. He’d considered swiping Reigen’s body at some point during this little adventure of theirs, should the going have gotten tough - but now he had this familiar ride all to himself, with far greater ins than the Spirits and Such duo could’ve swung on their own.
Dimple hoisted Reigen onto his shoulders, began clambering down the hill of rubble and towards the back end of the facility’s ruins.
“Didn’t really picture this turning into a sting operation,” Dimple said aloud, finding his octave on Takuya’s raspy vocal chords. “Just figured I’d drag you along for P.R. purposes.” The spirit laughed. He obviously hadn’t the time to revel in regaining a meatsuit - God, he’d have loved to, though. “But you always surprise me in your usefulness, Arataka.”