Saiki K PeePee

Ch. 22: Denial

That could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse, Saiki thought.

He was relieved to have gotten that out of the way. He was especially impressed by Aiura. She (mostly) kept her cool and tried to defuse the tension as often as she could while completely caught off guard, no thanks to Akechi.

Now that he had shrugged off that weight, he intended to spend the rest of his evening at his training grounds trying to figure out a way to modulate the intensity of his psychic powers. He tried to clear his mind as he had many times before. He wanted to test whether or not his emotional baseline had changed enough to involuntarily weaken his powers. He used telekinesis to throw a nearby rock at a large boulder with enough force to punch through it. No dice. The rock emerged from the other side with plenty of kinetic energy to spare.

His next test involved deliberately lowering his psychic powers enough to what he hoped was a normal human level. He had succeeded at this in the past, but his consistency was not within acceptable tolerances. He decided to punch several boulders to ensure an accurate sample size for his consistency while also clearing his mind. Failure. He succeeded a few times in punching normally, but shattered far too many boulders or threw punches like Kaidou's to consider it even the most remote of successes. Moreover, the fact that he didn't look like he was trying at all was troublesome. It would definitely get on someone like Hairo's bad side.

It seemed that the only way to dampen his powers right now was to be under emotional duress. He needed more data on that frame of mind to be able to replicate it enough to be consistent and useful. He also needed to solve how to get there in the first place. His power fluctuations were quite inconsistent. The last words his mother said before his power surged was "you deserve to be happy." Does this mean that happiness amplified his powers? Unlikely. His powers lowered when he was in his mother's lap and sometimes when he was with Teruhashi.

No, his powers only surged when under extreme emotional stress. After his mother made that comment, foreign thoughts rushed into his mind, resulting in extreme pressure in his head which created a positive feedback loop that resulted in a power surge. It happened again a few minutes later, so this seemed to be at least somewhat plausible. The only other times he could positively identify as not a matter of exhaustion or loss of consciousness were during the yakiniku... outing and when Teruhashi was laying in bed after he almost gave her a heart attack.

What had he felt during that time? He wasn't entirely sure. At yakiniku it had been after he thought about how much she had changed. At her place it was after he thought she was brave. Was she the link? He hoped not because that would mean he was inextricably tied to her. That wouldn't do; there had to be another explanation. Taking the times he had fallen unconscious into account presented even more variables. Once again, he came to the conclusion that he needed more data. He breathed an aggravated, resigned sigh.

Guess I'll have to cut my testing early.

He teleported back to his house to find his mother preparing dinner. His father had not returned from work.

"Oh hello, Ku-chan! We're having tempura udon tonight! Your father is working late, so please go ahead and bring Kokomi-chan's shoes back to her," his mother greeted him brightly, motioning toward Teruhashi's shoes which had not been moved from their spot at the front door. He hadn't planned on seeing her tonight due to the testing and the emotional pummeling that he was made to suffer earlier, but he knew his mother's tone well enough to know that this was an order. "Please" was a formality. Through his clairvoyance he found Teruhashi sitting at her desk attempting to do homework. It was not going particularly well for her. Thankfully, the pest was not in today. He grabbed her shoes and teleported to her room.