Forget - After and Before

"How much junk do you have in this place?" Ritsu muttered as he began emptying another cabinet.

Reigen rolled his eyes and floated over to Mob as he was packing files away.

Spirits and Such was shutting down for the most part. Reigen had mostly run it by himself since Mob's last year of high school, occasionally mentoring a psychic or two when Hanazawa came across one, and a lot of things had just begun piling up or being shoved into a corner.

Now, of course, as Reigen couldn't maintain a corporeal, living-looking form, there was no one to really run his business. For now, Serizawa, Mob, and Shou would take turns around their jobs while they tried to figure out how to explain his mysterious disappearance, but they all figured that the office could start getting cleared out.

Mob had elected to do it and roped Ritsu into doing it as well.

Not without complaints from the younger Kageyama brother. Reigen continued to hear him as he watched over Mob's shoulder. "Need any help, Mob?"

Mob gave him a polite smile. "No. I'm good, Master." With a quick tap, he straightened the last batch of files in his area and placed them in the box. Both he and Reigen looked around the office, only the filing cabinets and their gutted contents left lying around. Mob frowned slightly. "Master, is there anything else - ?"

BANG!

Ritsu's cursing filled the air as he rubbed his hand and glared at the final cabinet he'd been working on.

"Are you alright, kid?" Reigen asked as he followed Mob over, the elder giving a quick look over.

"Peachy." Ritsu deadpanned. "My hand got caught on some sort of secret panel." Ritsu's suspicious eyes went between Reigen and said panel.

Reigen and Mob exchanged a look. "I don't remember any of my cabinets having a secret panel." Reigen honestly said, giving the impression that he was shrugging.

Mob hummed thoughtfully. With a wave of his hand, the panel came off and out dropped a single, thin file. Mob picked it up and flicked it open.

"What is it?" Ritsu asked as he and Reigen leaned to look it over.

"Ah." Recognition filled Reigen's eyes. He blinked. "That file."

"What file? I thought you didn't remember this panel!" Ritsu snapped as he reeled back.

"I forgot about it on purpose." Reigen floated closer to study the paper and nodded. "This is the case where I died."

Both of the Kageyamas froze. They stared, eyes flickering from the file to Reigen and back.

"What?" Mob's quiet voice broke the silence.

Ritsu snatched the file from his hand and read it over now. "There's barely anything here! How did you even die?" He demanded, and if Reigen didn't know better, he would have said he actually looked concerned.

"Funny story." Reigen said. "At least in hindsight." He took the file and turned to drop it in one of the piles around them.

"Was…" Mob hesitated as Reigen glanced back at him. His fingers twitched. "Was it… a spirit?"

"Didn't look like it." Ritsu muttered as Reigen sighed.

He looked between the two and somehow he knew they weren't going to drop this.

"No, it wasn't." Reigen sighed. "You see, what happened was…"

It was a fairly simple job. A farmer outside the city had called him out asking for assistance because his animals were mysteriously disappearing. He was convinced that it was the work of spirits.

Reigen hadn't even been there for five minutes before he figured out what was wrong. The farm was located near the base of the mountains and a walk around had revealed a small gorge with an old and weathered fence that been knocked down at its edges.

Like most of his clients, Reigen knew that common sense wouldn't be listened to.

"So get to exercising!" The farmer insisted as Reigen surveyed the damage.

He hummed. "Let me cut you a deal." Reigen said, wishing he hadn't worn his usual suit out here. "Give me access to your spare fencing and I will set you up with my 'Keep the Spirits Out' barrier. I can guarantee with such a fence protecting your land here, it will decrease spiritual activity by 80%. And it will all be at a reasonable price."

The farmer gave him a shrew look, but he ended up taking the deal.

Reigen got to work. It took the rest of the afternoon, but the new fencing was set up. He added some of the talismans he had to make it look more convincing. The only gap left was where the old fence laid. It came up to Reigen's knee though, so he thought the only thing that could get tripped up by it was a person.

Reigen wiped the sweat from his brow, giving the fence a proud grin. He was glad it wasn't a real spiritual problem. He wouldn't be able to do anything for that. Luckily, hard work could help solve most issues that came to him.

He pulled down his sleeves from where he had rolled them up and slid his jacket on. The farmer had already paid him, so he was free to go home.

"Ah, this was a good day's work," he said to himself. "Maybe on the way home, I'll - "

As he turned away, his foot caught on something. Reigen pinwheeled his arms, trying to catch himself, but his leg hit something, and he was falling, and -

When Reigen woke up, he was lying face forward in the grass. "Whoops." He stood up and brushed himself off. He glanced back at the gorge. "That was a close one. Good thing I fell forward."

Something niggled at the back of his mind, but Reigen pushed it aside. Instead he focused on which stall he'd buy ramen at on the way home.

It was probably for the best that he didn't think to take a final look at the inside of the gorge as he left.

Mob and Ritsu were staring at him with wide eyes.

"Of course, what actually happened was that I fell backwards, not forwards." Reigen finished his story. "But I didn't realize this until weeks later, and by that point, I just decided to forget that little fact as I had better things to do than be dead."

Ritsu opened his mouth as if to say something before he snapped it shut. Reigen couldn't help but feel a smidge of pride at rendering him speechless.

"Master…" Mob's eyes were looking glassy again. And that thrust Reigen into semi-panic mode.

"Hey, don't look like that!" Reigen waved his hands trying to assure him. "It was a long time ago! And besides, everything worked out!"

Mob looked slightly mollified, but he still seemed a bit unsure. "Still…"

"It's fine." Reigen pushed before turning back to the files. "Now, let's finish this off."

Behind him, the Kageyama brothers exchanged a look, an entire conversation going on between them.

Reigen didn't see Ritsu give a determined nod as Mob snuck the file into his bag.

The gang was meeting up again. They had finally released a statement to the press about Reigen's disappearance. No one had figured out what had happened, but given the truth, no one would believe it outside of the psychic community anyway.

Ritsu and Shou were late though. Reigen frowned as he floated next to Dimple above the group. Shou was a bit of a wild card, but Ritsu was always punctual.

"Oy, Mob, is your brother alright?" He couldn't help but ask, going over to his former student.

Mob didn't look particularly worried, but that didn't mean anything. "Ah, he and Shou had some business to attend to."

"Huh." Reigen decided to let it slide. After all, if Shou and Ritsu were up to something together, he really did not want to know.

As both of them eventually showed up covered in dirt, he decided he really did not need to know.

"You didn't kill anyone, right?" Reigen couldn't help but ask though.

Shou laughed. "Not today!"

That wasn't exactly as reassuring as Shou seemed to think it was.

Still, as Ritsu slid next to his brother with a whisper of "We took care of the remains", Reigen left it alone. He got the feeling that it wasn't anything bad.

Reigen got drawn into an argument with Dimple and life moved on. He pretty much forgot Shou and Ritsu's weird behavior and the grateful look Mob gave them.

And for once, this was something that was okay to forget.

AN: Happy Thanksgiving! I finally finished this epilogue that tells how Reigen died. Quite a few people seemed interested in knowing so it's finally here. The most recent chapters definitely gave me the drive to finish this.

So yeah, Reigen fell off a cliff. And if you're wondering what Ritsu and Shou were up to, Mob was worried over the fact that he didn't know if anything proper had ever been done to put Reigen's remains to rest, so Ritsu and Shou found them and gave him a proper burial.

Hope you enjoyed this and thanks for all those who've liked and supported this story!