Really? Nobody else is just gonna write some wholesome ridiculous Team Dynamics fluff for this fire house of weirdos? I have to do it? Fine. You get what you get, though. I'm crazy.

Not all the information in these chapters will be anime-friendly, but you'll get the gist. I'm mostly here just to play in the sandbox anyways. XD

Because sometimes Ōbi's bleeding heart gave Takehisa more work to do.

It was part of what made him likeable, and quite frankly, he wouldn't have put up with a lot of the nonsense that happened in the 8th if a great deal of it wasn't born from their Captain's inborn reflex to help everybody. It was more complicated than even that; Ōbi had the ability to spot a diamond in the rough from thirty paces, or from the most impersonal of student files, or even in the middle of pitched combat…

At first, Takehisa was sure that it was luck. By the time they had been saddled with both Licht and Vulcan, he was sure it was a skill.

And it had saved them more than once. Oh boy, their rookies were still super rough (and Takehisa knew this on a personal level, as he had taken it upon himself to polish them, because there was no way Ōbi would do it by himself), even the "senior" ones, but they had good hearts, sharp instincts, and were unwaveringly loyal. Everyone else could spot the diamonds now. Still uncut, but recognizable. He was sure that whomever Ōbi dragged home next would be much the same. Loud and undisciplined and in severe need of some leashing, but filling a hole they didn't know they had.

Speaking of leashing…

They were following a dog. An actual dog, whom Ōbi had found sniffing carefully at their groceries as they made a stop at the store. Takehisa had come out with his arms laden to find his Captain feeding it shrimp chips. Long legged and brown and skinny, but with enough meat on it to let Takehisa know that it was canny enough to know how to get a meal. Canny enough to know that Ōbi was probably going to end up emptying that entire bag of chips into it, even if it was slightly wary of his large hands. Still, he offered pets and food, and the dog wasn't about to complain; Ōbi even got a couple shy licks at his hands in recompense (and Takehisa considered that a somewhat poor trade, as they could definitely not buy replacement chips with those same hand licks). Eventually, long before reaching the bottom of the bag, some sort of inner, incomprehensible switch was flipped, and it took off down the street at a swift walk.

With Ōbi in tow.

And hence, with Takehisa also in tow. Even though Ōbi was a grown man, and could certainly get himself back to the cathedral on his own.

Also, they should leave the poor dog alone; it was likely able to outrun the both of them (certainly in speed, if not counting Ōbi's freakish stamina), and any covert attempts that Ōbi made to close the distance between them only had the dog moving a little faster.

They were jogging now.

With groceries.

This was not anywhere near the relaxing, mundane chore it was supposed to be.

Takehisa made the claim that any attempt to catch the dog might spook it out into the street, where it could get hurt. Ōbi countered that he wasn't really trying to catch it, just follow it. Takehisa didn't believe that shit for one second, and if this chase had been all for curiosity's sake, he would have turned around right then and left.

And yet, here he was. He was not yet sure what that said about him.

The dog eventually made an abrupt turn down a small alley, and immediately it's body language change to one of comfortable familiarity. Namely it's ears and tail came up, and it just about sprinted down to the dead end. It stopped in front of an open door behind a restaurant, to a loud, vocal cacophony of greetings. A couple people came out, one bent to pet the dog, and another with a bowl of table scraps, which appeared to be even more appreciated that Ōbi's chips, given the speed at which it's tail was wagging. One of the people reached a hand into what Takehisa first though was a box of old rags, except that it moved, and a very tired, skinny cat leaned into the attention. There was a similar old box of towels on the ground nearby, presumably for the dog.

"Seems it is getting along just fine." He sighed, surprised to feel something rather like relief, before giving Ōbi a nudge. "Come on, sir. We've dragged this out long enough. Let's not bother them."

Ōbi had the biggest, stupidest grin on his face. He was unabashedly relieved, and then some.

"I'm just glad it has someone looking after it." The grin didn't abate one bit, but he turned from the alley anyways. "It's gotta be rough to be a stray in a city like this."

"But it's made due." Takehisa turned on his heel. They had a decent walk ahead of them to get back to the Matchbox in the store parking lot. He may as well lead the way to prevent further distractions. "Let's go, we have our own hungry strays to feed at home." He wasn't even close to kidding; he somehow didn't realize that taking care of so many people under the age of twenty meant that the most of them seemed to be in a constant state of starvation. Ōbi could put food away because he was huge; these kids could put food away for no fathomable reason whatsoever, other than wasting energy on inane things.

Ōbi switched the grocery bags he was holding to one hand, and plucked most of the rest of them from Takehisa's arms. At least if he was going to drag the both of them down this random street and that random alley, he was polite enough to carry most of the groceries for their walk back. The Captain cocked a brow and fixed him with a look as he did so.

"Did you just call them 'strays'?"

"I did."

His other brow joined the first, and he gave Takehisa a lopsided smile.

"Brutal."

"You treat them the same way." He was able to stifle it pretty well when at the cathedral, but once the rookies were away by themselves, the Captain had a habit of pacing worriedly. It would have been endearing if it weren't so irritatingly distracting.

Ōbi snorted.

"I do not."

"Yes, yes you do." He shifted the remaining groceries in his hands to balance the weight, and lengthened his stride. "You somehow managed to find the various cast-offs of society and bring them home."

"Wow, you are extra brutal today." He could just about feel Ōbi's grin burning into the side of his face. He ignored it.

"None of it is meant as an insult, simply stating the facts."

"Except that you have all the subtle delivery of a nice heavy brick to the face." Ōbi was snickering now, and Takehisa did his best to ignore that too. "Also, no I don't."

"Stating it more than once does not make it less true." His photographic memory was coming in handy; given the wild rush that had gotten them here, it was a miracle he had enough landmarks to tell him where they were. "Our company seems to have suddenly acquired a worryingly large number of orphans." He spared a little mental corner to mull this over; it was true, they had an unusually high percentage of "lost" kids on their roster. "I have my suspicions, and I blame you for every one of them."

Obi coughed out an indignant squawk.

"I didn't even know these kids existed twelve years ago!"

Takehisa gave him a look over his shoulder.

"That is not at all what I meant, and you know it." He didn't think he would have to explain that. Of course he wasn't responsible for the circumstances, just for collecting the various pieces of the aftermath and bringing them home with him. Repeatedly. And really, Company 1 bore the brunt of suspicion regarding Shinra's situation, specifically. "I'm just making you aware, every single one of your recruits has been an orphan."

"That can't be true."

"It is." Takehisa took a turn at the corner, hearing Ōbi's heavy bootsteps behind him. "We can start with Iris, Shinra, and Arthur."

"I didn't pick Sister Iris, she was sent by the Temple."

"And you kept her."

"I didn't hear any complaints from you or Maki. Speaking of Maki…"

Oh no he was not.

"I wouldn't try to make that comparison if I were you. Maki is my recruit, I take responsibility for her, and she is not an orphan at all. She has… an aggressively protective family." He had a whole rolodex of memories filed from their second trip to the Nether. Fighting in the dark with Maki's brother as both his only backup and as someone who probably wouldn't have worked too hard to prevent him from dying had been an uncomfortable experience. In poor Takigi's defense, Takehisa hadn't made himself very likeable. Deliberately. He took some pleasure in knowing that the younger sister cracked significantly less under his unique brand of verbal hazing than her older brother, who had basically fallen to rage-filled pieces. "Very, very aggressive."

"Hell yeah she does. You almost decapitated Shinra with a clipboard when he first met her in the office."

He could hear the mischief creeping slowly back into Ōbi's voice. Takehisa had to cut this off before he became absolutely incorrigible.

"Not what I meant in the slightest. You are being deliberately difficult." And he refused to look at the hypocrisy that was a brief moment of a spike in temper. It made him uncomfortable.

"And you slaughtered my perfectly good television that day."

"Stop bringing home untrained strays, and I won't have to punish some manners into them."

"Yikes." Ōbi's laugh was a perfect balance between mirth and horror.

"Maki turned out fine for it." And she did. He was proud.

"Double yikes."

Throwing-a-clipboard-into-a-television aside, Takehisa didn't see a problem. So far, Ōbi had never stopped him, either. Despite likely ruffling feathers on both sides, the exchange worked out well. Ōbi brought in rookies with powerful skills, honest hearts and the common sense of doorknob, and Takehisa would fix the rest. In all honesty, despite the rough edges, the probies gave him quite a lot of good material to work with. He hadn't managed to really break any of them, yet.

He heard Ōbi sigh.

"Okay, so we have three orphans. You cannot honestly think I'm doing it on purpose."

Back to this topic? That was fine. Ōbi's stubborn bullheadedness was what made him good at this job.

"Five, and yes, but please continue."

"It's not like I look at an application and it says, 'comes with a tragic background and unresolved emotional baggage involving the death of all known family members.' There's no way for me to know!" Ōbi managed a broad gesture with both fully-laden hands that also managed to somehow not jostle the groceries too much. Takehisa was impressed.

"I have a feeling you lean towards them just on instinct alone." Because that was just his way, to want to fix what was broken, be it people, things, or the whole damned Fire Force. Even if his ability to do repair work around the cathedral was ghastly. Just the worst. "Also, there is no sustaining evidence that Arthur's family is dead. He was abandoned."

There was a choked, uncomfortable cough from somewhere over his shoulder.

"And the brutality coming out of your mouth continues unabated."

"It's how I am." That was this whole situation, really; Ōbi could not change his way of being, no more than could Takehisa. Even when it clashed. "And you take in strays. It's what you do."

"I run a company. That's what I do."

"And you have filled outcast Company 8 with outcasts. It's almost a little poetic." He could see the store and subsequent parking lot towards the end of the street. Even at this distance, the massive black Matchbox was hard to miss. He could not be any more thankful that this was almost over.

"You don't even particularly like poetry." Ōbi gave a thoughtful grunt. "Wait, who the hell are the fourth and fifth orphans? Tamaki is right out, and not just because she has a family. Burns sent her our way, since she was suspended from operating at the 1st pending the criminal investigation. Although, if I give in to your analogy that I bring home stray dogs, which I'm not because it's rude, I guess that means Tamaki really is a cat."

"I find it droll that the White Lion of Tokyo gave up one of his kittens to you." He would admit that the mental image it conjured was mildly entertaining. "And the fourth and fifth orphans are Vulcan and Lisa." At the pace he set, the distance down the block took less time than he thought. He crossed the store parking lot to the Matchbox as quickly as he could without actually jogging. Returning to the safety of something approaching his standard routine was comforting.

Ōbi's exasperated sputter was amusing. Good; it was about time the discomfort ran in the other direction for a while.

"Vulcan is eighteen! An honest adult! Lisa is… um. Huh. Anyways!"

"Vulcan was orphaned years before you picked him up. Lisa too, hence the difficulty in undoing Giovanni's damage." Which was an emotional ant's nest the Takehisa found himself woefully unprepared to deal with. His very presence seemed to cause her to bolt. She seemed to do much better with Ōbi. He supposed that was natural, given the circumstances of her presence at the 8th. "My theory still holds."

"And really, Iris, Shinra and Arthur brought home Vulcan."

"At your command, yes they did." He unlocked the back of the rig; with nobody else riding in the back, there was more than enough room for all the groceries. He turned enough to pin Ōbi with a look. "They are very loyal to you, and you have taught them to fetch." If he'd had both his hands free, he might have been tempted towards a slow, sarcastic clap. "Bravo."

"We are gonna have to cut the salt from your diet, because that is all I'm getting from you today." The low growl didn't carry any real heat with it, which meant that Ōbi was only slightly irritated. Which meant that Takehisa could safely push a lot more buttons. He didn't indulge often, but they were out, nobody else back home would know, and Ōbi still owed for the energy wasted on this dog-chasing farce to begin with.

"I suppose this will be easier, since you have given away half our shrimp chips."

"You like dogs, too. Let's not kid ourselves."

"Yes, let us not." Groceries loaded, he made his way to the driver's seat. Not only was driving his job with their Engineer back at the cathedral, but Ōbi's aggressive, inefficient driving made him white-knuckled in absolute frustration. "Come then, ringmaster. Your beasts are waiting, and I'm not sure how long Maki can keep them controlled by herself." Because if there was one skill he hadn't managed to scare into her yet, it was teaching her how to properly pull rank.

"I'm going to tell Sister Iris that you called her a 'beast.'" Ōbi pulled himself up with hardly a pause in stride. The Captain had always made getting into the high front seats of the Matchbox look ridiculously easy.

"Do it. If you think you can." There was an infinitesimally small chance that it would actually happen; Ōbi was naturally opposed to hurting feelings, especially if it was Sister Iris. Their youngest, unless you counted Vulcan's occasional clinger-on Yū, and out of all the lost youth Ōbi had brought into the 8th, she was the best behaved one by leaps and bounds (Maki lost points for summoning her terrible little flame sprites the minute his back was turned). Those good manners made Takehisa inclined to agree with him, more often than not.

"Also, 'ringmaster?' Is that the best you've got?"

If Ōbi wanted to challenge that, Takehisa would oblige.

"Would you prefer 'alpha?' Make you the biggest dog in the place—"

"Never mind what I just said. Just get in and drive!" Ōbi just about threw his seatbelt into the buckle and crossed his arms. If he had been ten years younger, Takehisa would have called the gesture pouting. Given his age, and size, it was almost childishly humorous.

"Or perhaps we can use 'father—"

"Less talking, more driving! I will pull rank to make this happen, so help me God." The switch from irritation to embarrassment was immediate. And loud. And probably why their Captain commanded such unwavering devotion even from their rougher, more reluctant members; such a personable swing of emotions was not uncommon. And Takehisa resolved to ponder exactly where he fell on that metric at a later date, when he wasn't distracted by minding the road. He managed to swallow a sigh, but relaxed into the back of his seat none the less. Despite everything, they hadn't ended up running too much over time, and should get back to the cathedral in short order.

Turns out, the adventure was not quite done, they just didn't know it until after parking the Matchbox in the app bay and carrying the groceries inside.

As expected, Maki had lost control of her juniors at some point while the upper command was out (disregarding Licht, who tended to keep his own company in between collaboratory bursts with Vulcan). To no surprise, Shinra and Arthur were the prime culprits, but Takehisa could easily argue that everyone in attendance was complicit, since they were all certainly not curbing this calamity (to his own disappointment, Maki appeared to have stopped trying, standing in the room with her hands on her hips and with far too few rebukes coming out of her mouth). Maki also had Sputter and Flare out and about, which meant that at one point there had been an open flame inside this building for her to pull from. Whether that had been an item, or from either of their third-gens was impossible to say. Sister Iris was watching from a corner, shielding herself with a small tray as if part of the insanity had already come flying her way once this afternoon. Tamaki and Vulcan were laughing uncontrollably, and Lisa, with an arm linked through Vulcan's to use him as some sort of living security blanket, appeared to be the most relaxed he'd seen since she'd been here. A right shame he was about to ruin it utterly, and with extreme prejudice.

Licht was Licht. Only Vulcan could reliably fathom what went on inside his head. He seemed at least mildly amused, though.

As for Shinra and Arthur themselves…

To no surprise at all, they were at each other's throats. Literally. If Takehisa didn't know any better, he would have thought they were moments away from strangling each other, what with the grabbing and the choke holds and all other sorts of nonsense that should not be taking place in the dining area. Perfectly viable when he had them spar with each other on the roof, despite the complete lack of any sort finesse, but if they broke something in here he'd have their hides.

Then they'd wish he was letting them spar with each other on the roof.

He was used to seeing backs straighten and salutes fly when he entered a room, but there was always a certain satisfaction at seeing Arthur and Shinra fly apart at Ōbi's sharp snarl. All Takehisa had to do was thumb a gesture at the grocery bags and there was a mad rush from almost everyone to grab them and put them away. There was an exasperated shriek from the kitchen partway through the process. Given the pitch, it could only be Tamaki.

"How in the world did they come back from the store with only half a bag of shrimp chips? This bag is huge! Who ate them?"

Takehisa dared to shoot a look across the room to Ōbi. The Captain met him halfway, and he looked entirely unrepentant.

"I told you, you knight bastard! I didn't eat the last ones! And if I did, I sure as shit wouldn't have left the empty bag in the cupboard like an idiot!"

"Except that the COs were both out, so that gets rid of two possible bandits. But not you, devil."

Because of course someone would have to hover over these two for them to behave when within a fifty feet of each other.

"Oh, I swear—"

"Shut up!" Maki. That was definitely Maki. At her wits end, finally. "They are one room over, and can hear us! We are already on the Lieutenant's shit list, and I don't want to give him another reason to be mad!"

So that row in the dining room was over chips? He wasn't as deeply surprised as he should have been, but now he could foresee some rookies washing all the cathedral's floors as punishment. By hand. No mops allowed.

Fortunately for them, the whole crew was on their best behavior for the rest of the day. Even Tamaki's curse minded its manners, mostly.

It wouldn't be until much later that night, nursing cups of coffee and sitting on opposite sides of a massive stack of paperwork, that Ōbi would broach the topic with him again.

"So, if I bring home strays to build Company 8," and the way he said it sounded an awful lot to Takehisa like he was coming around to the idea, "then what does that make you?"

Takehisa didn't even take his eyes off the sheets of paper in front of him. He had given this quite a bit of thought already.

"The theory still holds."

A surprised grunt from the other side of the table.

"You sure you should be agreeing to that?" And Ōbi leaned to the side to stare at him around the stack. "I'm gonna have to do something about that self-worth problem you have."

"Don't be ridiculous." He reached for the next file on autopilot. "I was your first stray. I just didn't know it, yet."

AN:

Just in case y'all didn't notice, Ōbi is my favorite. It's gonna be hard for me to not write him. XD

Also, watching Laser Eyes Hinawa bury a clipboard in a TV is still one of my favorite parts of the anime.