Chapter Text
Religions are harder to start than one might think, even with the personality and expertise that Dimple has. He possesses a striking enough looking man, he sweetly whispers what people want to hear right into their ears, and he slowly gains a following. They all laugh together, jubilant and faithful, in the basement level of a department store, but they never grow beyond fifty followers. They never break out of their basement and into the streets. It frustrates Dimple to no end that it won’t take off, no matter what he tries. People don’t believe in miracles, they see magic as a clever trick, and his personality and manipulative abilities will only carry him so far. People are not the sheep that they used to be.
One thing people do listen to is power, not spiritual, but physical. In today’s modern world, the men with the power get the following. Men with money, affluence or strength amass armies of devoted worshipers. However, For all his strength, Dimple can only influence people. He is incapable of great shows of power. He cannot shake the world at its foundations or rouse millions with a speech, he is only as physically strong as the body he has. He has minimal physical manipulation abilities, enough to make the trees shiver as he approaches, but nothing more. Moreover, no one in his religion has enough money to raise an army or sway politicians. Dimple is well and truly stuck until, by some miracle, the world changes.
That is, until he spies his chance in the form of a small boy. He is elementary aged, judging by his uniform, small and plain looking. He has his hair cut in a very straight, very neat bowl around his head, his bangs almost level with his eyes. They swallow his eyebrows, making his young face look blank and expressionless. Dimple watches him in a small park as he bends the metal bars for play, levitates animals in the air and creates bubbles of water for his friends to marvel at. Even at such a young age, he has more power than Dimple has ever sensed coursing uninhibited just underneath the surface of his skin. Dimple can tell immediately that he cannot possess him, his power is too strong, too alert, even if the boy shows no indication that he knows Dimple is even there. It gives Dimple the opportunity to follow him. He watches him everyday before making any moves. He sees him walk with his brother to and from school. He sees that they stay out of trouble, never loiter. He seems like a good, obedient child. Dimple sees an opportunity.
It only takes a clever accident to get the boy to show his powers in front of more than just his brother or his little crush. A tired and negligent truck driver on a busy road presents the perfect opportunity. Dimple possesses the man as the boy and his brother are crossing the street, pressing the gas pedal as far down as it will go as he speeds towards them. The two boys are caught by surprise as the truck approaches them at top speed, both their eyes wide. The younger brother freezes, while the older one acts quickly and pushes him out of the path of the vehicle. The force needed to move his younger brother out of the way makes him stumble to the ground, but Dimple doesn't slow, though he inadvertently causes his vessel to swallow thickly with nerves. Perhaps the vessel is in more control than Dimple thought. If the child cannot protect himself from such a small threat, then the boy is hardly worth Dimple’s time, hardly worth slowing down.
Finally, Dimple’s faith in the boy is rewarded when he finds the truck jolted suddenly out of motion, lifting marginally off the ground. The wheels spin uselessly in midair as the boy stretches out his hand. His hair floats around his face, as if caught in a breeze, his power surging and swirling around the truck even as he kneels before it. Dimple leaves the driver before the truck’s wheels hit the ground again, just before the boy’s power can seek him out.
Around them, people are gasping, whispering about the small boy who just stopped a truck with nothing but his outstretched hand. Dimple quickly repossesses his original body and enters the thick, chattering crowd forming around the two boys.
“There must be something protecting that boy,” Dimple interjects into the crowd, just behind one of the more vocal onlookers. Subtlety is key. The idea spreads through the whispers like fire through a parched field. There is tentative disbelief in divine intervention or guardian angels, but it's not entirely dismissed. The more gullible of the crowd hoot and holler Dimple’s idea, glad for proof that there is a higher being looking down on them.
“Ritsu, are you okay?” Dimple hears the elder boy say over the din of chatter. The younger brother blinks in shock, head slowly turning to face the elder.
“Brother…” the younger, Ritsu, says, eyes welling up and tears overflowing down his chubby, childish face. The elder brother stands immediately. He wobbles on his bloody, road burned knees for a moment, but he hurries his way to Ritsu who is now reaching up to him like a needy toddler. The elder brother obliges, enveloping his brother in a firm, protective hug.
“What a good boy,” Dimple comments behind another bystander. People in the crowd coo at the scene, others echoing Dimple’s sentiment.
One woman, a school teacher from the looks of it, emerges from the crowd and herds the two children out of the street. She must know them, considering she addresses Ritsu by name. He is still frozen with shock, gasping through tears, so the elder brother must practically carry Ritsu off the road. Once out of the street, the woman offers the two boys a little packet of tissues and in keeping with the caring older brother act, the elder accepts them politely and uses them to sop at Ritsu’s tears and clean the chipped asphalt from his soft, scraped up palms. The scene is very touching if the audience’s reaction is anything to go by. Good.
Soon the children are whisked away by emergency responders and police officers, but not before plenty of people have snapped photos of the two on their cellphone cameras. Even with as plain a face as the elder brother has, no one who witnessed the event will soon forget it.
Soon, rumors spread throughout the small town. Whispers of the little boy with a guardian angel that protects him and his brother. Dimple feeds the rumors, encourages his followers too. He tells them that their god has chosen one among the denizens of the town to manifest himself in. That the god had chosen to come here to provide them with more happiness and that he will protect his little vessel at all costs. Despite some people expressing disbelief, it stirs up more enthusiasm in his little cult. They gain a few more followers, they have a lot more notoriety around town.
Dimple couldn't have planned the next events in his most devious moments. Just after the New Year, when the town’s interest in the boy had begun to wane, the brothers are walking home together once again. The bullies that confront them are all older and much bigger than the two elementary schoolers and they quickly and easily divest them of their pocket money. The elder brother seems content to just let it go, but the much bolder Ritsu is having none of it.
His ferocity and aggressiveness attracts the attention of the delinquents and they turn on him, grabbing him by the collar and swinging him around like a rag doll. This spurs the usually passive elder brother into action.
“Ritsu!” he calls, hand outstretched for more than likely another glorious show of power. Another delinquent disrupts him though, catching him around the chest and hurling him into the wall. The crack as the boy’s skull hits the wall drops the entire street into silence, punctuated only by the rustle of fabric as the boy slumps and goes eerily still. The responsible delinquent stares at him, something like guilt twisting his face. But he cannot see what Dimple sees, the power swirling inside of the boy, growing as every second of unconsciousness ticks by. The air around them distorts, growing heavy, and pulling towards the unconscious boy. It seems as if the hidden power stored in the very atoms of the surrounding material is being sucked towards Shigeo’s small form. The ground underneath their feet shivers ominously, and the whole street darkens as even light is caught in the boy's building psychic hold. It takes less than a minute for all that power to explode outwards, lifting the thugs off their feet and into the surrounding walls, launching them through them and tossing them down the road.
The esper lurches to his feet, as if an invisible force has lifted him up by strings. His eyes are blank, glowing eerily in the cloistering air. His hair whips around his face in choppy points, a stark difference from its usual blunted plainness. Dirt, grass and tiny stones wiggle free from their places and join the torrent around the boy, hiding his form in a tornado of debris.
Ritsu is not spared the untamed wrath.Though the elder brother’s power leaves him untouched, the pure force of it all launches bricks and stones up into the air and whirls them around in a crazy vortex. Ritsu doesn't stumble back and away in time. A brick hits him in the temple and sends him sprawling. He lays, not unconscious, but immobilized as the tempest quiets, leaving the older boy standing in its wake.
“Brother…” Ritsu says, voice soft and pained. Blood drips down from his hairline, quickly soaking the pavement underneath him. The elder brother’s gaze swivels to him slowly, pausing on the unconscious delinquents briefly before landing on Ritsu.
“Ritsu!” The child shouts, running to Ritsu and dropping quickly to his side, “Are you okay?! What happened?!” His fingers gently prod the other’s wound, but he flinches back when Ritsu makes a pained whine.
“It hurts,” Ritsu cries as his brother gently lifts him into his lap, “Brother…”
“I'll help you, Ritsu!” the elder brother promises, “does it hurt anywhere else?”
Ritsu doesn't respond and the older boy begins to panic, jostling Ritsu desperately to rouse him. Dimple decides then to intervene. The bright sun is at his back, no doubt casting his face in shadows, but he smiles nonetheless. First impressions are key. “Oh my!” Dimple says, his long robes swish around his feet as he walks forward until he towers over the two boys, “do you need any help, little boy?”
He does not hesitate. “Please!” the boy begs, “call an ambulance, please!”
Dimple grins as he does as asked, his long shadow falling over the two children huddled beneath him. “Don't worry. It will be alright,” he promises once the ambulance is on its way. He kneels before the child staring up at him with wide, tearful eyes. “I saw what happened,” he says gently. The child jumps, hands tightening on Ritsu. “It's tough to have all that power, but I can help you,” he says, voice warm and comforting.
“Help me…?” he repeats quietly.
“Yes. Those powers of yours are a gift,” Dimple says, gentle and sweet. Behind him, the wailing sirens of an ambulance grow louder. “You just need to learn how to use them.”
“I don't want to use them,” the child says, looking down, eyes trained on Ritsu’s steadily bleeding wound, “I don't want them anymore…”
“I know it feels that way right now, but that will change,” Dimple says quickly, “You just have to let me teach you. I know what your powers are capable of… once, when I was your age, I had the very same affliction. Learning to control it is what got me where I am today.”
The boy pauses and finally looks him over. “As a department store mascot…?” the boy asks, straight faced. His eyes wander to Dimple’s sandal shod feet to the false jewels strung around his neck.
The sudden, sharp pang of annoyance and offense is enough to temporarily erase Dimple's smile. “No, you little--” he pauses, breathing deeply through borrowed lungs and giving him another large smile, “I help people. I help them become happy.”
The child’s eyes widen slightly, before Dimple is pushed aside by paramedics rushing in. Soon Dimple is just as swamped with people as the two boys on the ground. Police officers swarm him, giving him suspicious looks. “Sir! Did you see what happened here?” one police officer asks him sternly, a notepad and pen in hand.
“These delinquents were harassing these young boys. They were hurting the younger one and the older overpowered them. It was amazing, Officer. Like I've never seen before… like divine intervention!” Dimple says, falsely amazed. The police officer gives him a flat, disbelieving look.
One of the paramedics speaks up then. “Hey, aren't these the boys from a few months ago…?” she asks, gently extracting Ritsu from the elder brother’s lap to examine his injuries.
“Yeah! You saved your brother again, didn't you? You're really something,” another chimes in, kneeling next to the elder as he frets over his brother. He traps the boy’s face with a gentle, gloved hand, forcing him to look away from his brother. “Hey, look at me. Are you hurt anywhere? Can you tell me your name?” the paramedic asks kindly.
“Kageyama Shigeo,” the boy replies automatically, allowing the paramedic to poke and prod him for injuries. While the paramedic checks his eyes, Shigeo lifts his hand to the back of his head, fingers coming away tacky with blood. He stares at it, detached for a while.
The paramedic gentle takes his hand and examines it, determining the blood is from somewhere else. “Hey, hey, Shigeo? Did you hit your head? Let me look,” he asks, before he immediately leans Shigeo’s head down, fingers prodding a spot on the back of his head where the hair has matted together, the black strands are even darker with dampness. “That looks like it hurts. How about you come to the hospital with us? You can ride with your brother,” the paramedic says, in a soft, kind voice.
Shigeo nods eagerly, looking to where Ritsu is being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher. Dimple clears his throat. “I am coming too,” he announces as if he has any reason to.
“Wait a minute, sir. We need a clear description of the events that took place from you,” the police officer says, stopping him with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“I told you what happened,” Dimple says with a smile, watching as Shigeo cautiously boards the ambulance behind Ritsu, guided by the paramedic.
“We need something more detailed than that!” the officer insists, and Dimple’s smile falters ever so slightly. He sighs, exerting his influence on the man.
“I gave you as detailed an account as I could, didn't I?” he asks, already knowing what the answer will be as the man’s lips turn up from their stoic line, “I need to go with those boys, don't I?”
“Y-yes, of course,” the man says, and he mirrors Dimple’s pleased smile, “Thank you for your cooperation. Please, follow them.”
“Thank you,” Dimple says sweetly, and follows them onto the ambulance, settling next to one of the paramedics. Shigeo is holding a wadded piece of gauze to the back of his head and watches Dimple board with guarded, but expectant eyes. Dimple leans over to him while the two paramedics busy themselves with getting Ritsu comfortable. “It's not your fault, Shigeo. Remember what I said?” he asks in a quiet voice.
“That'd you help me,” Shigeo parrots obediently.
“Do you want me to?” Dimple asks. For once, Dimple cannot use his powers to get what he wants here, Shigeo is too powerful. He cannot assert any sway over this boy. He cannot make him happy and he cannot make him agree.
“Yes,” Shigeo agrees, nodding seriously. His eyes lock on Ritsu, bandaged and unconscious as the paramedics fuss over him.
“Good. My name is… Dimple,” Dimple says, deciding on the truth, “I can teach you to be great, Shigeo.”
Shigeo looks up at him, then down at his lap, biting his lip in sudden indecision. “Um…” he says quietly, “I don't… you said you make people happy?”
“Yes, I do,” Dimple says, somewhat baffled.
“I don't… I don't want to be ‘great,’ or anything… I just want to make… people happy… with this power,” Shigeo says, “If I could do that, then it wouldn't be so bad.”
Before Dimple can reply, the paramedic turns her gaze on Shigeo, smiling at him kindly. “Your brother is going to be just fine. How about you let me get a look at you now?
Shigeo nods, and Dimple watches carefully as the paramedic prods at Shigeo. He is cautious now, suddenly protective of his new disciple, his new avatar, and soon to be his little god.