There was no way of knowing what Mogami had done to Mob inside the closed space he'd dragged him into, but whatever it was, whatever buttons he'd pressed or limits he'd forced Mob to break, there was no going back.

What came out of the closed space both was and wasn't Mob.

Standing tall inside the crater, surrounded by broken earth and the dry husks of plants the psychics had drained to fuel their power, was a roughly human-shaped black hole with burning white eyes, and thick black hair that whipped around in the unnatural gusts generated by the psychic's bottomless energy.

In desperation, Ritsu screamed his name. He sprinted down the crater's unstable walls without thought, taking long, reckless strides and reaching for Mob long before he was close enough to touch.

The ground shifted beneath his feet, changing, and he fell, past rocks and cracks and dead plants, down and down and down, until a gentle aura surrounded him, saving him from injury, and then effortlessly placed him back on his feet.

And Ritsu knew the touch of his brother's power better than his own, had memorized it in his core years ago, and so he gaped at the spectral being, watched it closely as it regarded him with curiosity and...

Concern?

"Nii-san?" His brother had never been conscious in this form before. "It's over, nii-san. You can turn back now. You won."

Mob tilted his head, silent. Time passed. Slowly, Ritsu repeated his words. Still, nothing changed.

And Ritsu began to realize that something was very wrong.

He trained himself not to flinch.

The first few days with Mob trapped in his most terrifying form were hard on him, as the trauma from his childhood had never fully faded, but he pushed past it, going out of his way to spend as much time with his brother as he could, until the fear dulled to little more than an annoying pinprick in the back of his mind.

Ritsu woke up every morning to see Mob sitting at the table, and every morning, Ritsu would pour himself a bowl of cereal, and then pour one for Mob. It wasn't necessary. Mob didn't need to eat, anymore. He didn't need to sleep, anymore, either. Ritsu had a suspicion that Mob waited at the table the entire night, waiting for him to wake up naturally, just so they could have breakfast together.

Ritsu could feel his brother's eyes on him as he shoveled giant spoonfuls of the wet cereal into his mouth and swallowed, forcing it down with large gulps of orange juice.

As always, Mob's own breakfast went untouched.

Their parents think he's grieving.

When he insists that Mob be given a plate at dinner time, when he casually asks Mob how he's feeling, even knowing he won't receive an answer, their parents watch with worried frowns, too afraid of what would happen to their remaining son's psyche should they try to disabuse him of the notion of his brother's survival to interfere.

But Ritsu can sense their doubt, and if he can, then Mob can, too. In fact, he can feel it all the more sharply. It's when it all gets to be too much that Mob will hang his head, beaten, and wordlessly drift from the table. More often than not, Ritsu will excuse himself, as the sight of his parents, with their anxious glances and blatant disbelief, makes him sick.

It's not their fault that they can't see their oldest son. But, even so, they should know better than to doubt him.

Mob never did.

At school, no one asked about the boy with hair like flames, with an inhuman grin that stretches to his cheekbones.

Ritsu walked with him in the halls, made sure none of the other students accidentally stepped through him, though many seemed to instinctually avoid the spaces his brother inhabits, as though some deeper, untapped potential was warning them off.

Another theory was that Mob's psychic aura had enhanced to the point where even those without any ability were affected by its presence.

On their first day back, Ritsu was surprised by how many people seemed to know and care for his brother. The president of the Body Improvement Club asked after his health, as Mob hadn't been to school for a while. Ritsu didn't have the heart to tell him that Mob was standing right next to him, listening to every word.

Kurata from the Telepathy club asked after him, too. Ritsu listened, nodding occasionally, as she described all the activities she had planned for Mob when he was feeling better. Speaking with someone so animated was exhausting, but when the conversation was done, and Kurata had scurried off to class, Ritsu noticed that Mob seemed to have, in his own way, perked up a bit.

Uncaring of who heard or saw, Ritsu offered him a small but genuine smile. "You have good friends, nii-san."

It was impossible to focus on his own studies when all of his thoughts were consumed by the knowledge that Mob was sitting in a classroom where no one could see him. The teacher either wouldn't call his name or would mark him absent, and even if Mob could declare himself present, there wasn't an esper in the room who could hear him.

For the entire day, Ritsu retained nothing. His notes were gibberish, the teacher's words static, background noise to the perpetual panic brewing within him.

When the last bell rang for dismissal, Ritsu flew out the door.

It wasn't long before he found Mob hovering in the hallway. Bystanders gaped and pointed as stray papers and litter gathered about him in an unnatural vortex even the unawakened could see.

Without hesitation, Ritsu lunged for his hand, latching onto something in flux, something that writhed and twisted in his grip. "Let's go home," he whispered into the gale.

The winds died down.

Three days later after their return to school, trace elements of Mob's blood and uniform were found at the bottom of the crater Ritsu had found him in. The school held a memorial for him in the gymnasium, during which Ritsu seethed quietly, scowling fiercely at anyone who attempted to sit in the seemingly vacant seat next to him.

For the majority of the event, Mob appeared dazed, his body burning with the searing fury of a dwarf star as speakers talked about his contributions to the school. A few of the students seemed to volunteer solely for the chance to be the center of attention - they hardly knew anything about Mob. They talked to him everyday? How? Ritsu knew the grade levels of every student, had memorized the class rosters and club members of the entire school. When had any of these people had the time or motivation to share two words with his brother?

A subtle crackle of energy to his right distracted him from psychically tripping one of them as they left the podium. He followed Mob's twin gaslight gaze to where the Body Improvement and Telepathy clubs sat together on the bleaches. There wasn't a dry eye among them.

Despite his condition, Mob still followed Reigen on his cases, helping out after school by exorcising hostile ghosts for the phony psychic, same as always, except he didn't carry a phone now, so Ritsu had to field the man's calls for him.

Sometimes, he told Mob about them. Sometimes, he didn't.

It was on the rare occasion that Ritsu accompanied Mob on a case that he gained a newfound respect for his brother's teacher. Upon meeting with the client, a young couple with a ghost infestation in the apartment they had purchased for a suspiciously low price, Reigen introduced himself, his assistant, Mob, and Ritsu. In that order.

It made him look crazy, the way he gestured proudly to the empty air beside him, and Reigan lost a few clients, some of whom he rejected himself when they flatly refused to believe his claims that an invisible assistant was present and ready to help, but that never stopped him from including Mob in every introduction, from speaking to him easily in front of his increasingly confused clients.

It became something of a test of character. Though Reigen wasn't exactly surviving on ample funds, those who flatly denied Mob's presence, who refused to change their mind, who turned the boy from a collection of stars to a dull, lifeless gray, were politely asked to leave.

In the end, Reigen lost track of how many clients he'd lost, but he continued his practice without any regrets, because the best ones, the people who searched for the boy Reigen spoke so fondly of with their eyes, despite knowing he could not be seen, who listened patiently as Reigen conversed with his invisible assistant, who stretched out their hands for a handshake, only to be pleasantly surprised when their palms tingled under the weight of a strange pressure, and their hair stood on end…

They stayed.

When the school day ended and there was nothing left to do, Ritsu would sit on the couch and watch TV. More often than not, a charge in the air would reveal his brother's presence, prompting Ritsu to voice a greeting without looking away from the television screen. Sometimes, the swirls of nebulas on his brother's body would settle, and Ritsu could see Mob's silhouette etched out against the stars, calm and serene, but always a little sad.

Although Mob was not truly gone, Ritsu still grieved his loss. But only when he was sure that Mob was too distracted to notice.

That night, when Ritsu was getting ready for bed, he caught himself wondering if his powers would be capable of exorcising a being of concentrated psychic energy, but once he truly became aware of the thought and its implications, he was promptly overwhelmed by a wave of self-loathing so strong it shook the house at its foundations, rattled the walls and tore his room apart.

Called forth by the strength of his emotions, Mob burst into the room with his teeth bared in a skinless grin as he searched for an enemy.

Upon finding none, he projected a comforting aura towards Ritsu. A blanket of reassurance. Of safety.

It forced Ritsu to realize that it wasn't that this new Mob was less than who he used to be. He was everything at once. He was rage and hostility and shame and rejection. He was kindness and compassion and courage and tenacity.

Yet, he still couldn't stop the tears from falling.

Embarrassed and ashamed, Ritsu scrubbed desperately at his eyes, before the sensation of a foreign energy wrapping around his back sent a shiver up his spine. He lowered his arms to see Mob had closed the space between them, enveloped him.

His touch was so light, yet there existed an intensity simmering beneath the surface, carefully controlled so as not to cause any harm. Distractedly, Ritsu wondered if hugging his brother would always feel like circling his arms around a perpetually collapsing planet.

He hoped it wouldn't, that someday Mob's physical form would regenerate, but was willing to become accustomed to this, too, if that was what it took.

It's okay, Ritsu. He could almost hear his brother tell him. I'm here.

He couldn't feel the warmth of Mob's body heat, or the tight pressure of his embrace, or the beating of his heart. He understood that Mob was doing his best to comfort him, the way he used to when they were young, when their futures were little more than pleasant dreams they would never have to face alone. And he knew that, even now, Mob would continue to protect him, but despite knowing all that, Ritsu had already begun to resign himself to an inescapable truth: He was going to miss him - his shy, anxious, impossibly kind older brother - for the rest of his life.

And the tears kept falling.