Chapter Text
Young Gods Pt. II
The fire that had been keeping him going all week, through the constant fights, the nights tossing and turning, and the damning thoughts haunting his every move, finally seemed to be smoldering. The inferno breaking down bit by bit. Dampened down into what can only be described as exhaustion. Now that his parents are behind him, leaving Izuku with no ability to change the outcome in front of him, he’s left with a little bit of frustration, a numbing weariness, and a burning sensation at the back of his eyes that he can’t find a particular reason for other than that the world continues to spin.
A yawn pulls itself from his mouth and he tries to recapture it with his hand, only to find an elbow sinking into his vulnerable side.
“Hey!” He yells, a little bit in pain but mostly surprise.
Shinsou, looking unimpressed with him, replies, “You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?”
“Ahhhh,” Izuku tries, but can’t quite remember when he had lost the trail on the conversation. They were discussing the Sports Festival at one point and then Izuku had been thinking about internship offers which lead into this morning and about how he didn’t tell his dad he loved him before he left and he had started to go for his phone and then decided against it and…
“Sorry,” He offers before he goes further down that rabbit hole. His hand comes up to tug at the back of his beanie in embarrassment.
Shinsou just rolls his eyes and stuffs his free hand in his pocket, looking like maybe he really doesn’t care, “Whatever.”
“No, no, you were telling me about the Sports Festival third round. I’m listening I promise!”
“You saw it, so whatever.” He tries to brush off.
“But I – “ He stutter-stops for a second. “I – I didn’t.”
Purple hair whips around towards him, the word coming out a little more shocked than Izuku know the boy means it to, “What?” Shinsou seems to catch himself before he continues in a deliberately uninterested tone, “You didn’t watch the finals?”
“I –“ Izuku starts, “I meant to, but –“ His eyes shift briskly over the entire Class 1-A. The eighteen students had bracketed around the pair as soon as they had clustered together at UA, leaving them at the center of the gaggle of teenagers.
No matter how they had tried at first to slow their stride and let the mob overtake them when they had finally departed, the group of students kept steady guard like they were escorting the boys to a firing squad. Izuku tries not to bury himself into the barely-familiar uniform collar at the attention, which at least, has not mutated into more than badly concealed whispers as they poke their heads around their friends to get clear looks at him.
The group surrounding Bakugou to his right had made him pause for a second when they left the school grounds. As common a sight for Izuku as the blonde snarling at the people surrounding him was in middle school, this was different. This group joked and nudged him. The names Bakugou slung flowed like water Shitty Hair Racoon Eyes Sparky Flat Face. No one flinched or even stared at his childhood friend with that hero worship that followed him around and plastered on to Izuku’s own face for most of his life.
Is this what we could have been, Kacchan? If I was stronger? If you were a little kinder?
Izuku thinks fear might be better than this. That he could live with. Jealous. Fury. Those are tougher to stomach.
His gaze though continues on, almost unwillingly turning for a second to the figure leading the procession before skittering back to his friend. “Just stuff –“
“I heard about that.” The teenager cuts in. His own stare is now glued to Iida’s back, but when it returns to Izuku his voice and eyes are almost excited when he asks, “Did you get to see it?”
He stammers for a minute before finally, Izuku says, “N-no, I just… I just got caught up in it.”
That’s all this has been, hasn’t it? Just a fantasy that Izuku let himself get wrapped up in. He would come crashing in with the final piece of information to save the day and BAM! they’d arrest the Hero Killer and everyone would see he could do it. His parents, Aizawa-sensei, the Hero Commission, Japan. They would understand that everything is going to be fine.
Because he can do this.
Izuku shakes off the thoughts. Between Endeavor and Team Idaten, they would have Stain pinned down soon. Hosu is filled with heroes and cops alike. It couldn’t be long now and it would have nothing to do with him. And he is going to have to get over it because he can’t do everything, just like Naomasa has said every time he begged for access to the case file.
Shinsou scuffs like he had been really looking forward to a well-described crime scene, “And I guess you’ve been busy since?”
Between his mom cutting off the wifi at ten every night, the chunks of time he spent re-arguing his case that a week internship is a huge waste of time over, and the new files Izuku had to go over with Yukimura to double check the leads list before it was turned into Naomasa today on top of his normal schedule… no, he hadn’t had time to watch the last hour of the Sports Festival he missed.
“Sorry,” Izuku apologizes, hoping he isn’t hurting the other boy’s feelings.
Shinsou rolls his eyes with a click of his tongue, “Yeah, whatever. It wasn’t like I made it more than twelve seconds anyways.”
“Oh,” Izuku acknowledges like he can feel the pain and begins to think maybe he should just leave it alone until the loss is a little less fresh, except he catches the other boy’s raised eyebrow and his own eyes widen in realization and he is quick to follow up with, “Uh, what happened?”
Looking almost giddying at finally being given the attention he deserves, Shinsou launches into the story of his epic showdown against Todoroki Shouto with enthusiasm like he had been waiting all week to share the story with someone who would truly appreciate it. The twelve second battle eats up their steps to the train station as the mind-controller takes him step-by-step through the wave of ice engulfing him right as Midnight allowed them to begin.
“I mean I get that I’m a huge threat,” Shinsou brags lightly.
Izuku hums in agreement and holds back the urge to rattle off seven examples he has to support that statement off the top of his head. Steadily he keeps his attention on Shinsou even as his head tries to turn towards the eyes that locked on him for the entirety of the walk. The dual-colored-haired boy is not even attempting to hide his staring. Weighty and unwavering.
What do you want, Todoroki? He wants to snarl back at him. Anger and exhaustion have been comingling inside him all week and his body is ready for any outlet he can find. Endeavor’s words still ring in his head, but this barely broken morning is the first reminder of something else he had said, You might think that just because he’s your father you’ll be Number One, but my Shouto will crush you both.
“But he could have given me time to show off a little bit, my hand-to-hand is still crap but I won two events just to end up with one internship offer because no one got to see me,” He ends.
The question chimes like a bell through his head, brushing away some of the agitation brimming under his skin and bringing his curiosity to the forefront, “I never asked, who are you working with for the week?”
Shinsou’s smile is all sharp teeth when he replies, “Eraser, obviously.”
Oh, Izuku can’t help to think, Oh, no. Memories of their Wednesday classes and Shinsou’s steady progress with the capture gear and Eraserhead’s signature fighting style clash with the anger the other boy is definitely still nursing over the teacher telling him to consider dropping from the Sports Festival early.
Eraserhead takes that moment to call them all to attention in the middle of the station, looking tired and like he lacks a single milliliter of faith in them to get through the week.
His advice is short, “Don’t mess this up.” To the point.
The hero is turning away before Izuku fully realizes that he’s not going to say anything else, but the rest of the class seems to have been used to the abrupt endings as they have already begun to scatter towards their respective trains.
“Don’t mess with him too much?” Izuku tries to offer Shinsou as they turn to move separate ways.
The gleam in Shinsou’s eyes is too familiar for Izuku not have a visceral reaction. His body has become too used to bruises and capture tape. “Haven’t you heard, Mido? It’s all just a logical ruse.”
Izuku catches Aizawa watching them, more precisely his purple-haired companion. He is pretty sure that there’s a good chance that only one of the perpetually exhausted will make it through the week. He licks his lips and, to ensure that it’s him, he walks away.
The train he boards is just empty enough that he doesn’t feel guilty sliding into the window seat of a two-person row. Settling his bags under his chair, he barely recognizes that someone hesitates for a moment on the spot next to him. Izuku glances up ready to nod the other person into the seat when he comprehends who is standing in the aisle.
“Iida-san,” Izuku acknowledges, grateful that his voice holds none of the apprehension that he feels. Nightmares and spiraling thoughts have a funny habit of lying in wait for moments to remind him that they still have occupancy in his brain.
The tall boy nods in return, “Midori. May I…?” He gestures to the empty seat.
“Of course!” The duo of words fumbles on his tongue and the large hand gesture land a little crookedly from Iida’s expression.
Too much Deku, you idiot. Keep it together, He berates himself.
Iida nods sharply in response and sits down like a silver rod is shooting from his neck all the way down his spine. Izuku finds himself almost mimicking the boy for a moment before reaching into his pocket for his phone in a frantic attempt to look busy. The thought, with his police-issued computer locked in Toshinori’s truck courtesy of his dad’s sharp morning eyes, was that during the ride he would watch the final round of the Sport Festival or maybe even catch up on some emails Hanamiya had been sending him. But his new companion keeps him nervous. Instead, Izuku fiddles through some apps before lifting his head up to ask something.
The question slips from his mind and pauses in his throat as he finds Iida looking straight ahead clearly lost in thought. The rest of the train murmurs in soft conversation around them and Izuku lets the words die where they sit on his tongue. It would be better not to annoy him.
Opening his email, Izuku begins responding to Hanamiya about where he’ll be this week if the man needs anything after confirming he would be happy to help with a few volunteer initiatives the Commission is heading up. Anything. Izuku is one-world ending excuse away from ditching Gran Torino. He could probably justify a corner-store stick up even at this point. Ending the email with a flourishing, Have a Plus Ultra day! Izuku re-reads it nine times for grammar and spelling errors – because he’s not a psychopath – before sending it off.
The overhead announcement is unintelligible static to his ears, but he does feel Iida shift next to him. Lifting up his head, he watches as the other boy pulls his hero costume box into his lap and swing the strap of his duffle around his shoulders. Iida then stands and begins to make his way towards the nearest door.
Biting his lip, Izuku quickly calls out, “Have a good week, Iida-san!”
The boy stiffens oddly, but turns around and responds, “You as well.”
Finally, the train pulls to a halt once again and Izuku hears, “Welcome to Hosu City.”
His heart stops. Hands gripping the back of his seat and the divider in front of him, Izuku is halfway out of the seat by the time the message ends. He doesn’t move from his half-ready position though. His body is petrified as he just watches as Iida makes his way into the station crowd refusing to turn around.
What are you doing, Iida? Izuku wants to scream across the masses. What are you doing?!
The jolt of the train jerks him to the side, sending him tumbling into his seat after a few bumps.
Endeavor will take care of it, He reminds himself of the vow he just made to leave Stain alone. Izuku tries to repeat it again and again and again. But even as the thought tries to imprint in his mind over and over, he knows. Fuck.
Detective Naomasa brushes past his desk in the pit, only giving him a wordless two-fingered hand motion as he passed to say follow, leaving Koichi stumbling to grab his laptop, case files, and coffee before rushing after him. Even though he looks like an idiot, there is a pride in being the idiot following around All Might’s Detective, working with All Might’s kid, being on The Case. This pride plasters itself to his face in a mask of get out of my way, I’m fucking important. The classmates he trained with at the Academy that threw him aside for bigger and better things stare at him now.
He shoulders closed the door to Naomasa’s office and drops into one of the guest chairs. Koichi takes a deep sip of his coffee as the detective rubs at his temples and the pride from the walk over settles into something subtler than glee in his chest but just as warm.
After a long minute of silence, he asks, “How did the meeting go?”
“Fine,” The man replies before debating a second and then adding, an exhaustion that he had thought to hide from the officer for just that moment becomes evident, “Well, not fine. It’s like holding the wolves at bay with the Commission. Please, tell me what you’ve got.”
Koichi holds back a grimace before taking the top file off his pile and sliding it across the desk, “Straight from the lab, DNA results from the Nomu. They match a small-time thug from Osaka, Tanaka Benjiro. He was said to have died from injuries he obtained in a small prison riot. Shock Absorption was the quirk he was registered with, obviously it didn’t do anything against a knife wound… or All Might.”
Naomasa scans the file while he speaks and asks, “The rest of the quirks?”
“From what they can tell, there’s three extra ones in there besides the shock absorption. Regeneration, strength, and a speed augmentation, which we knew about from the student accounts of the fight.”
“Could they track who the quirks were taken from?”
Koichi clicks his tongue, “No, it looks like whoever did this didn’t do it through whatever genetic manipulation happened to make him like – well, that.” He gestures to the file, no better descriptor coming to mind.
The older man’s right hand goes back to rubbing at the quickly forming headache at his temple, “This just confirms what we knew then. It has to be All for One.”
Maybe it’s just his youth, but the thought of a villain like that, that has lurked behind the scenes for so long and done some many evil things, being on the other end of this mystery just gets his blood pumping. The fact that he is here. That he knows the hidden secrets of All Might’s most powerful enemy. Excitement beats at his veins, even as his face remains stoic.
“I have interviews lined up for tomorrow and Wednesday with all people on staff at the prison and the Tanaka family. The appointments are on your schedule and the station rooms have been booked.” He pulls a fistful of files out from the stack and hands them over, “This is the background for everyone coming in. There’s a paragraph summary for each on top so you can just skim them.”
The detective looks at the pile and then directly at him. “You’re getting better at this,” He compliments.
“I learn quickly,” He says, letting the praise pull the corner of his mouth into a smirk.
“If the interviews are tomorrow, what are you doing today?” Naomasa asks.
The final file sits in his hand and he holds back the urge to fidget. Swallowing hard, Koichi passes it over, “The incidents that I found that I think could be related to Shigaraki Tomura and All for One.”
He had narrowed the list down with Midori’s help over the past week, picking out the ones would hold up under intense scrutiny. The file itself is three inches thick and rubber banded together to keep the papers from scattering.
Naomasa stares at the final file for a long second. Koichi tries to read his expression that looks somehow both calculated and exhausted at the same time.
“Go.” He says shortly. “You have today and only today. Otherwise, I want you back on research.”
Definitely not enough time to hit all twelve cold cases the way he’d want to but the rhythm of his heart is already rising in excitement like he’s holding at the beginning of a race. “I don’t have a squad car.”
Naomasa glances at his computer and pulls up the shift schedules, eyes sliding quickly over the screen. His nose twitches a little when he lands on someone he trusts, Koichi notices, as he says, “Take Sansa. I don’t want you going out alone anyways.”
“You got it, Detective Naomasa,” He replies already sorting through his priority level and travel times to hit up as many spots as possible. Tamakawa is a pain, but at least he drove fast.
He’s almost out the door when the detective calls out, “And for god’s sake do not call Midori this week. All Might is already anxious that he doesn’t have eyes on him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Boss,” He answers smoothly, hopefully vague enough to not trigger the detective’s quirk.
Suspicion fills Naomasa’s face, but clears quickly enough, “Do you need this back?” His hand gestures to the unopened file of research Koichi just handed him.
Like a piece of sand paper grinding down his back, the easy dismissal of his work without a look is almost physically painful but he manages to respond without any more emotion than usual, “No, that’s your copy.”
The man nods and Koichi finds himself barely holding back the urge to sprint to his desk as he leaves the room. The files that had not been handed off to Naomasa find a home straight into his locked filing cabinet. He takes a stress ball that sits on his desk for opportunities like this and lobs it at Tamakawa’s head where the man is clearly typing a report at his desk.
The ball hits the paw of its intended target with a hard thwack. “What, Yukimura?” Tamakawa asks barely looking up to chuck it right back at him, refusing to even try to add an amiable lit to his tone.
Koichi catches the ball easily and slides his cellphone into his hand, thumbing out a message to Midori about priorities and go time. The boss said no calling, but the officer refuses to lose his biggest outsource of brainpower. Especially not today.
“Boss says you’re with me today. Super-secret stuff, you know?”
He can see the other officers in the pit rolling their eyes, but Tamakawa’s head jerks up quickly, eye flickering between Naomasa’s door and the exhilaration that is coming off Koichi is waves. They are out the door in the next two minutes.
His phone lit up with in quick succession as two text messages came through. I have 6 hours to hit spots. Where am I starting?
Izuku bites his lip for a minute, brain cataloguing the twelve cold cases that Yukimura and he had narrowed down their initial list to. The majority were spread across large metropolitan areas, but there were two concentrations of cases that had fixed points to start.
He lets his thoughts wander through a long pro-con list of each batch before he gets another text.
Stop muttering. Just tell me off the top of your head.
Izuku freezes, somehow both warmed that the officer knew him well enough to guess his actions and freaked out that he had been letting such a Deku habit out in front of someone who only knew him as Midori.
Jaku Hospital, He types. There are seven children related to four case files that went to their pediatrics department for yearly check-ups and it’s close of enough to where they are starting to suspect Shigaraki’s hideout might be from the interviews with the USJ villains. Anything from the lab results?
Tell you when you get back. Izuku tries not to scoff at Yukimura’s response, knowing Naomasa had already gotten to silver-haired man.
He’s about to send something back akin to begging when another message come through.
Stop lurking across the street.
His phone almost drops out of his hand as he whips his head up to see Gran Torino, staring straight at him from the doorway of the building ten meters in front of him. Quickly pocketing the device, he jogs the two car lanes. His hand is already coming up to rub at the back of his neck.
The old man is wearing his full yellow and white costume equipped with his best glare hidden behind a domino mask and a surly frown. He had spoken to the hero only once before on a quick video call that had left his dad shaking on the couch next to him for no apparent reason besides his presence.
“I’m so sorry, Gran Torino,” He offers with a deep bow. “I was just answering a quick text message.”
Gran looks at him unimpressed, “Really, now? And who would be on the other end of that message the Commission or the police department?”
“Ugh – “ Izuku tries to stammer out but the hero just turns into the building without a glance backwards.
The old man just continues, “Toshinori told me all about you. That big lug has spent the past week calling me and texting and generally being as annoying as he can be.” He finally turns back around to face Izuku head on, his expression like a brick wall, “So let me make one thing clear: you are here to learn and if I have to spend the entire week beating that into like I did that idiot than I will.”
A shiver runs down his spine. The threat looms thickly as he closes the front door behind him and he thinks he might understand why his dad to this day has such a harsh reaction to his old teacher’s name.
“Uhh – “
Gran grouses, “Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, sir!” He stammers out.
“Get into your costume!”
“Yes, sir!” He’s down on his knees riffling through his duffle and costume case trying to pull out the necessary equipment before the command truly processes. When his hands hit a wooden box piled atop his clothes, he finds himself trying to speak again, “But – ugh – “
“What?!” He barks.
“My mom made taiyaki after you said it was your favorite… Can I put it somewhere?” From his duffle bag, he pulls out a box of the fresh fish-shapes treats and offers it up to the hero sheepishly.
“Oooo,” The sound is paired with a grabbing hand motion. Gran Torino pulls the confections out of Izuku’s hands as soon as it is with reach. He opens the box, letting the smell of the red bean paste waft over them.
“Your mother is a treasure. What does she see in that idiot?” Gran asks, his voice coming off completely different than his previous drill sergeant-esque demeanor.
“She’s the best,” He agrees, not really understanding what he means since his parents aren’t like that. His cheeks start to flush at even the thought of it.
Closing the box, the hero goes to set it down carefully on the kitchen countertop. Then, Gran says, “Seriously, kid, get dressed. We’re going to see where you are at and see what we can improve on this week. If you’re good, maybe we can do some patrols.”
Some of Toshinori’s odder habits were becoming more apparent in origin. The mean taskmaster oscillating back and forth with the calm teacher reminds him a little too much of their early days on the beach, but he nods seriously and goes to put on his uniform.
This won’t be so bad, Izuku thinks, fastening his googles to his face, I’ll just impress him in training and then see if we can do patrols in Hosu.
Ten minutes later, Midori has a fat bruise on his cheek and a lot less faith in that statement.
“So, what are we looking for?” Tamakawa asks. His voice contains just enough societal-nicety that Koichi can’t actually justify telling him to fuck off and just wait in the car.
The nurse had let them set up in one of those conference rooms they usually reserve for bad news and worse news. With a pile of seven pediatrics files on missing kids that ranged from sixteen to twenty-one years ago, he didn’t feel like he was going to find any happy news in here either way. His hands splay possessively over the stack. He doesn’t want to share with the mutant-quirk user. A combination of stingy greed at the grandiose thought of a miracle break in the case and the inability to actually verbalize what he’s looking for has him trying to fight the urge to bring the pile close to his chest and scream ‘mine!’ at the other man.
The fact that Koichi is slowly working into Naomasa’s good graces and pushing Tamakawa out of them had made sure the pair would never like each other. Tamakawa’s quirk made him perfect for relaxing suspects and a poster boy for ‘good’ mutant quirks for the department, but he had to also wormed his way under Naomasa almost as soon as the man had vaguely thought of the idea of mentoring a uniformed officer around two years ago. The cat is only a few months off his experience requirement for detective plus managed to nab himself an almost exclusive relationship with Eraserhead, so it is not like he couldn’t share the wealth. Except he had taken to Koichi being placed on the All for One case with the metaphorical and physical door shut in his face as gracefully as a real cat being tossed into the water.
Koichi didn’t care though. He had been living at the bottom of the barrel in the station anyways. Having Tamakawa play most popular girl in school didn’t really mean anything to him when he had already been getting assigned the worst patrol times and the most coffee runs.
He had been looking out for himself his entire life. The only difference now is that he had coattails to ride off of with his little green superhero. From the first time he tried to arrest him for vigilantism in that All Might hoodie only for All Might himself to scoop him up, the officer knew that Midori would make him. Koichi had spent multiple crime scenes trying to find a way to get close enough to him to establish a relationship and seeing Daisuke usher the kid into a classroom when he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack had been just the opening he needed. He had never sprinted down a hallway faster.
Koichi never had much pride, there wasn’t enough room in his life for it. Begging would never be above him.
“I’m looking family quirk histories related to disintegration. Failing that medical histories with anxiety disorders or even just dried skin.” He finally says, bluffing mostly based on the easily identifiable traits Midori and the UA students had been able to tell him. Finding Shigaraki wasn’t the ultimate goal of the Nomu investigation, but his identity could provide more insight into All for One’s connections. The who, when, and what of it.
Who was involved?
When had it happened?
And, hopefully, the what the fuck had gotten them into this situation?
Slipping his fingers over the file names, he pulls out the Miura siblings and the Ono boy to hand to the other officer, leaving himself with the Ishii brothers and the Shimura siblings. The Shimura siblings that technically shouldn’t even be on the list since the eldest Hana had manifested a legacy quirk from her family’s paternal side called ‘Float’ which had been passed from her grandmother to her father so there was a 75.4% that the younger sibling would get the same or a variant quirk. The prevailing theory was that some quirks, akin to black hair and brown eyes, just contained dominant genes and that was that.
But he couldn’t find it in himself to pull the case out, not when it was the one that gave him the idea for this in the first place.
“Also look for education history, if any of them were in any type of education programs we can hit the schools or daycares for photos after this.” Usually Koichi wasn’t against children pre-quirk onset not having government or hospital identification, but he could be staring straight at Shigaraki Tomura’s case right now and that child could be staring back with white-blue hair and a demented smile and he would never know because there were no goddamn photos attached to any files.
“If you say so,” He hears Tamakawa snip.
He finds himself taking steady notes through the four patient files, nothing quite standing out but hoping that once it was all spread in front of him it would trigger something. The Ishii brothers had been twins being watched very carefully for quirk triggers since their parents both had combinations of probability quirks. According to the documents, they had started hanging out for the first time when they had figured out that their quirks tended to not swing to extremes when they were together and stuck it out from there. A full hospital blackout had occurred the first time the mother had come in without her spouse.
Per their case file, the entire family had been reportedly missing five days before the twins’ fourth birthday when the grandparents had called that they hadn’t opened the door for the scheduled party. The police department had knocked down the door only to find the house completely empty of life. Ishii Akemi and Katashi later reported that they had gotten a frazzled call from their daughter that the boys had shorted out all their electronics including their car and they would be home from an impromptu camping trip in a few more days. The station never followed up, happy to close the case.
Koichi couldn’t even get any of the numbers on the file to connect in the first place and, he notes, the hospital for all they were monitoring, the boys nor their parents were ever heard from them again.
He scribbles out the attending doctor’s name on the side to follow up. A blocky UJIKO DARUMA.
Tamakawa hums an intriguing sound across from him. Mentally, he debates the pros and cons of just leaving it and feels his eye twitch a little when the cat repeats the sound.
“What?” Koichi asks ensuring that his voice held no more care than when he was randomly assigned the routes along the suburbs for the third time that week. He wouldn’t give the cat the pleasure of a reaction.
“Just a thought.” Tamakawa starts before pausing, his head tilting almost innocently, “Nothing, I’m sure, that hasn’t crossed your mind yet.”
His eyes go a little unfocused trying to ensure the highest form of nonchalance. “Great, then there’s nothing you need to tell me,” He responds and grabs at the Shimura files.
The other office clicks his tongue at him annoyed at the lack of attention. Seriously, at least Midori had fun reactions to being blown off.
“Come off it,” The older finally says.
Koichi looks up slowly and blinks at him, “Seriously? Me? You’ve been parading around –“
The chair Tamakawa was sitting in falls over as he rises, orange fur bristling as he says, “You stole –!“
Standing to match the other uniformed officer, he replies, “Stole?! Are you kiddin – “
“This should have been my case and you’re ruining it!” The man hissed at him, slamming his palms against the table
Barring his teeth, the rage at the last few years working with this asshole flows through him and he leans over the table as well to get in Tamakawa’s face, “Naomasa chose me!”
“No!” The response is quick, “You kidnapped Midori and guilt him into –!”
“You do not know shit about me, Tamakawa! So, why don’t you –” He yells back but stops suddenly, eyes dipping down to the documents they have rustled in their fight. Staring down at the table at this angle, Koichi can see all seven patient files open and six identical blaringly orange slips of paper.
Koichi grabs at the orange documents, pulling them towards himself.
“All of these kids?” He asks, half to himself and half to Tamakawa.
The fire is still smoldering in the man’s eyes when Koichi looks back to meet it, but he responds, “Yeah, they were all on quirk watches.”
“We have six kids – seven if you count Shimura Hana – with the possibility of crazy quirks, just disappearing out of nowhere at the same hospital? And no one checked up on them?”
“How many years was this over?” Tamakawa asks instead.
“Five. The best age range we have for Shigaraki is twenty to twenty-five.” He answers. “Seven kids, five years, no government tracking information because they were all pre-quirk onset.” And a crazy son-of-a-bitch that could be using a hospital like a library check-out for quirks.
The man goes to pick up his overturned chair and says over his shoulder, “Was there another hub of these?”
“Yeah,” He says, sinking back into his own chair, “Musutafu General. So, what you’re saying is…” No longer able to deny that this is what Tamakawa was trying to lord over him before.
“What if one of them isn’t Shigaraki Tomura? What if they all are? Or at least…”
Koichi’s head is spinning a mile per minute because Tamakawa doesn’t have the final piece of information. If All of One was playing some form of child Hunger Games for the title of his successor than he didn’t need the kid to have the best quirk. He just needed the child that suited him best and then he could play build-your-own criminal with his power.
But, which one of them was it? Which kid had been too good for this immortal sociopath to let go of when he had taken what he had wanted from them?
“We need to figure out who had access to all these children and how long this has been fucking going on,” Koichi states and pushes his pile over to Tamakawa, “See if you can find the overlap in treatment, I’m running the search code over again with no time parameters. We only have – fuck – four hours until Naomasa cuts us off.”
The cat still looks like he has a few more things to yell at Koichi, but both of them know a good lead and also how to take credit for it. So, he bites his lip and gets to work, hoping to find something substantial in the pile of cold case records. Not for the first time in the past twelve hours Koichi can’t stop himself from wishing this wasn’t the week where Midori’s parents started to pay attention to child labor laws.
His suit jacket is back on his shoulders and his work bag has been rearranged and packed for the past twenty minutes, but he’s frozen. It is four o’clock on a school day and Toshinori has no idea where to go. He has spent the time since Izuku’s departure this morning haunting the UA halls, scrapping together just enough work to keep himself busy.
Toshinori found himself packing his bag and plotting his way to the grocery store only to realize that Inko hadn’t messaged him a grocery list. The realization froze him to this spot. There is no grocery list because Izuku is gone for the week. Inko and him did not need to plan out an entire week of meals specifically designed for Izuku’s diet and to a lesser extent his own.
Toshinori does not need to pick up groceries. Toshinori does not need to go to the Midoriya household. Toshinori does not know what he is supposed to do.
The thought of what this week would be to him never crossed his mind. What was he supposed to with his evenings? Did he go to the apartment? Did Inko even want him around? This was the first time she got to be alone in years. She probably wants to relax and enjoy the quiet of an apartment without him taking up space. It is better to just go home. To just leave her to her peace and not burden her with his own desire for company.
But…
But he didn’t want to. Even though his relationship with Inko is defined by his relationship to Izuku, Toshinori can’t help but want to cling to his new normal. The staleness of the apartment he barely uses haunts him like a forgone conclusion. It’s always waiting for him – empty and dusty at the end of the night when he hunches his shoulders and finally leaves the Midoriyas behind. Heaving out a sigh, Toshinori grabs at his bag. He squares his shoulders and feels stupid that he’s more terrified of the apartment he owns than the villains that try to end his life on a daily basis. The yawning loneliness in his chest refuses to stop aching on his walk out of the school even as he repeats this thought over and over again.
UA is like a ghost town. He had thought there would be more teachers around, cleaning up their lesson plans and willing to talk Toshinori through how some of his ideas would work in actuality. The only person (animal) he had seen was Nedzu. An interaction that spun him away from the teacher’s lounge and towards his office in a hectic attempt not to give the principal any more information about his student’s future.
Maybe he should have just gone with Izuku to Gran Torino for the week.
A shiver worms up his back at the thought, but at least he wouldn’t stalking through an empty school, scared at the thought of going home. Toshinori is pretty sure he didn’t used to be like this. He did his job, kept his diet plan, worked out, and crashed in his bed at the end of his shift whenever that may be. There wasn’t any room for longing for companionship, no need for it either. Toshinori knows that being All Might the Number One Hero is easier than being Yagi Toshinori the human being. He has been over the realization pretty often with his therapist.
It’s easier to drown in work than drown in what his life had become after Nana died, after Mirai left, after David went to one side of the world and him another.
“A phone call has arrived! A phone call has arrived! A phone call – “ He rips his phone from his pocket, stopped in the middle of UA’s perfectly manicured lawn.
“Inko,” He greets unsure.
Her tone is somewhere between light and airy and anxious as she says, “I’ve been staring at the grocery list since this morning and I had the startling realization that we are empty nesters.”
The grocery list. She hadn’t forgotten about him and something warm and hopeful blooms in his chest. “What’s that?” He asks having never heard the word.
“It means we are old people that are used to having a ridiculous child to take care of and now that he’s gone we supposedly get to make fun, adult decisions.”
The humor coating her tone cues a smile to begin to tug at the corners of his lips, “I don’t think I know how to make fun, adult decisions. What are you thinking?”
“Well, I was talking to one of the other partners and told her Izuku was gone for the week and you know how people have been gossiping since you came back to town – “
“Inko,” He interrupts with a laugh, knowing their fake story well and the fun she’s been having at work with it.
“Right,” She says, laughter also coating her voice, “Anyways, she pulled some strings and now we have reservations at Ginza Kojyu because that’s what people do when their children have been spirited away for their own good for an entire week. They stay out late and go to nice restaurants. Supposedly. I’ve never done this before.”
Reservations. Inko made reservations. The ache in his chest had disappeared without him even noticing. He isn’t alone. She really wants him around. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes and he can’t help that thought that maybe he is turning into a real Midoriya if this is his immediate response.
His silence has obviously stretched on too long because Inko’s voice pops back on the line, “We don’t have to if you have other plans. I just thought – well, my colleague thought – but I wanted to – I just I don’t know what to do without Izuku around. He’s always been around and I don’t – I don’t know what to do without him.”
“No,” Toshinori says, his voice a little hoarse, and then repeats, “No. I want to. I was thinking the exact same thing.”
The relief is clear in Inko’s voice as she says, “Oh, thank god. I just feel so pathetic.”
His laugh rings clear as he responds, “Me too – me too.”
Inko’s own laugh is like bells through the phone, “Okay, so fancy dinner then because we are adults who can go out on a school night because we do not have a child that needs to eat his body weight in protein and get up at dawn for a two-hour workout. Our reservation is at seven, pick me up at six-thirty?”
He’s still laughing even as a tear falls free from his eye, “Yes, I’ll see you at six-thirty.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The nausea has washed over him like a tidal wave. A sickness seeping quickly into his very soul, deeper and deeper as the information just sinks.
There was panic at first. A manic wave of dread and excitement before Tamakawa stopped him from running to the nurses’ station and demanding more files. More and more files. Hundreds of names with ages never ranging past four years old over the past eighty years of government records. Kids go missing all the time, it seems.
The pattern was hard at first. To really identify the ones that were just an odd happenstance or a runaway that never returned or even just bureaucracy, but eighty years ago, All for One wasn’t as good. He either didn’t care about being seen or he thought himself above the clean-up or the newer police technology. Once Koichi found the pattern when the criminal was sloppy, it became easier and easier to trace the trail through the years as he gained the finesse of children-stealing.
He had watched in some detachment as Tamakawa swept the files they already had into his bag and then kept his mouth shut as the other officer led him out of the hospital, all fuzzy cat smiles and patient as the nurses asked when their files would be returned. Koichi looked on, carefully holding himself back from screaming at her, how could they not know? How could they have never noticed? The cat just spouted nonsense about dealing with some old cases that had never been properly closed out, faking an attitude that said there is nothing but stupid government procedures happening here.
Koichi had been excited this morning. Filled with glorious pride. Now, there is vomit sitting at the back of his throat. Four hundred and thirteen from the first, four-hour long records sweep.
Tamakawa purposefully sits him down in the back of a ramen shop two blocks from the hospital and orders for him when he refuses to even pick up the menu. When the waiter has moved along, he turns to him and says, “Naomasa said he’ll meet us early tomorrow morning. Before your meetings?”
“We have some interviews starting at eight,” Koichi responds, trying to focus on action, on a plan, on something other than the children that they have failed for decades. Four hundred and thirteen of them.
The other officer is tapping at his phone and nods, “Plan to be in by six-thirty then.”
He nods back, not even commenting for him to piss off like he would have a few hours ago. Tamakawa had kept him from ruining whatever edge they had by discovering this. His rush for answers would have certainly alerted All for One if the villain didn’t already know.
“Are you going to tell me what’s happening finally?” Tamakawa asks after a long period of silence.
Koichi looks up from where he has been staring at his hands, just hoping answers would come to him.
“I’m pretty sure I know around ninty percent of it, but why look through all the records we have digitalized instead of just a lifespan’s worth? Why that many children? What the hell is going on, Yukimura?” The words come out in a fast whisper, the officer’s eyes darting around every so often to check who might be listening.
The fear he feels in his body, a living breathing anxiety, triples at the audacity. “Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up,” He furiously whispers back because while he might have been working on instinct and panic before, he isn’t now. Now, he understands Naomasa’s hesitancy to bring in help of any kind and even mention what they are investigating without knowing the area completely.
“Hey – “ He starts.
“No!” He slams his hands on the table, before regaining some semblance of composure, “Just – Just wait for tomorrow. Fucking hell, just wait.”
Tamakawa must finally see whatever fear inside him isn’t from his lack of experience in brutal crimes. It’s really that bad. “Fine,” He agrees, like he’s doing Koichi a favor by dropping it, “Fine, but…”
“What?” Koichi is grasping at his irritation by the neck and strangling it into submission just to get that word out.
“How did you figure this out?”
The officer cocks an eyebrow.
“The open-shut cases, the missing children. How did you connect it?” It’s probably the closest Koichi is ever going to get to Tamakawa actually admitting the he did something amazing.
The pride he felt from this morning returns just a little bit before disgust at himself tramples it. Though, licking at his lips, he doesn’t think outlining his thought process would be too much information, not if he’s vague. “The Shimura case,” He starts.
He had flipped through the file enough times during his teenage years and Arisu had a habit of reviewing the case out loud when the worst of her guilt caught up to her. She stopped throwing a fit when she noticed him in the room when he turned fifteen and was actually willing to let him have input when he had finally settled on the Police Academy at twenty. It felt more like an old horror story than anything real for so long. Koichi doesn’t know why the All for One case made him dig deeper, but the nausea in his stomach and dread sinking into his very being makes him feel like maybe he is on to something.
“My foster mother was working with the family right before they went missing. Well, working with the mother, Shimura Nao. Shimura Kotaro had been beating her and the children. He was a real piece of work, supposedly. Just wanted a ‘normal’ family and would start throwing punches for quirk usage, hero talk, any of it. The little girl, Hana,” He gestures to where the files have been tucked away in Tamakawa’s bag, “Her brother was on quirk watch because she got her paternal grandmother’s quirk and was halfway to the stratosphere before a flying hero could get her down. The father was smacking her around before the fire department and the hero had even left. After around six visits to the house, when Shimura was at work, she thought she had almost convinced Nao to leave her husband.”
He pauses as the waiter places two bowls of ramen in front of them and only continues once the man is clearly focusing on other customers.
“She said that Nao was finally scared enough that Shimura was going to kill her youngest Tenko. A few days later, the whole family just up and disappears. Then a couple weeks later, Shimura’s boss gets a call that he moved his family to the States. She spent months trying to get in contact with Nao to make sure her and the kids were safe, but could never figure out exactly where they were or a phone number that connected. Finally, she started looking deeper into it and nothing made sense. The house was never sold, their passports were never pinged to leave the country, no flights were ever booked. My foster mom was obsessed with finding out what happened to the Shimura’s. She at least wanted some closure or to give Nao some hope that someone out there was looking for her and her children, even if Shimura had finally cracked and… Well, you know. When I learned the background for this case, I don’t know… it just felt like the missing piece of the puzzle. Who has enough power just to make people disappear like that? One second they were there and the next the entire family is never seen again.”
Tamakawa’s sharp eyes have narrowed at him in thought, “I just have more questions now.”
Koichi finally grabs his chopsticks and avoids the piercing animal glare by concentrating on his food, “Ask Naomasa then. You probably already know too much for comfort.”
“Fine,” He agrees, settling into his own bowl. “But who’s your mother? A social worker? Can’t be a police officer…”
Koichi glares at him, they would have treated him a lot better if he was a legacy cop. “Foster mother and leave it alone.”
“Foster mother,” The feline tries the word on his lips. “Hmm, avoidant, so not a social worker then. A hero.”
The gray-haired man tries to bring back his stoic mask, but that just seems to clue the other officer in more.
“Oh,” His voice light as he says, “An underground hero? Your mother is an underground hero and you were still on coffee runs. Ooof.”
Koichi thinks that today might have actually bonded them, gave them a starting point in what may have been not a friendship but an amicable workplace relationship, if Tamakawa wasn’t such a fucking asshole. He takes a large slurp of his noodles and sits in silence for the rest of dinner even as the feline continues to dig at him because fuck that guy.
The restaurant is upscale and beautiful. Draped in low lights and a sheen of nouveau modern, Toshinori tries not to fidget with the knot at his throat. In his best sports jacket, he felt somehow both underdressed and over as younger men wearing over-sized sweaters and multi-colored shoes and older men wearing beautiful solid cut suits trap him in a state of unease.
He is glad at least that he had an outfit that fit him like this. Skin and bones, Rika had forced him to his usual tailor with a nice story of All Might wanting to pay for a few nice suits for poor, infirmed Yagi-san over a year ago. Toshinori had taken the garment bags, put them in the back of his closet, and promptly aggressively forgot about them. The bagginess of All Might’s clothing at least meant that he could be more. That he could be bigger and better than this body was.
I am alive, He stops, reframing his own thoughts. I am alive because of this body. I appreciate this body and all that it has given me. And without meaning to he finds himself adding, Without this body, I would not be able to escort this beautiful woman to dinner.
And beautiful she is.
Toshinori has seen Inko in two types of outfits: professional attire and her casual day affair. Both of which showed her beauty in different ways, the power of her heels as they hit the floor of the kitchen in the mornings before they all left the apartment and the casual softness of a relaxed afternoon or weekend spent lounging about. But this is something else entirely.
She had blushed deeply when he had stuttered out a compliment upon coming to pick her up and proclaimed that she a bought the black off the shoulder dress in a moment of fanciful delight on her birthday and never gotten the chance to wear it since the neckline was anything but work dinner appropriate. He tries to keep his own blush off his face and his own eyes from trailing down to the very workplace inappropriate neckline or the way the dark material hugs the curvature of her hips and stops right before her knees.
The pair flow through the restaurant after the host and claim their places across from each other as the woman assures them that a waiter will be by soon. Caught between the lower murmur of music and conversation around them, they both start.
“How – “
“So, – “
“Sorry – “
“You go first – “
Both of them snap their mouths shut and Inko touches her hand to her mouth and suddenly she is laughing and Toshinori finds himself doing the same in response. The man finds the tightness floating from his throat as the giddiness of their equal measures of awkwardness washes over him.
Finally, when their giggling ceases, the blonde asks, “How was your day?”
“Weird,” Inko sighs out a little breathless from the previous mirth, “Izuku has never been gone for longer than a night and that was so long ago before… “ She doesn’t have to finish for him to know the rest of the sentence. “I’m worried. Which is so incredibly infuriating because he is such a smart boy and he can punch threw a wall –“
“But, he has the worst ability to find trouble?” Toshinori finishes.
“Yes,” She breathes the word out.
Toshinori has spent the past week leading up to today dealing with the same anxiety and just nods in understanding. Gran Torino had taken to blocking his phone number at least once a day last week and he still itched to text his old mentor even though the man had confirmed Izuku made it to the building safely hours ago.
“Gran is good at keeping teenagers in line. I definitely did not win the easiest teenager award and he worked the stubbornness out of me,” He confesses.
Inko raises an eyebrow, “It was worse than it is now?”
“Hey!” He yelps in mostly fake affront, “I was an awful teenager. I’m only a mildly frustrating adult.”
Another round of giggles slips from her mouth and Toshinori can’t help but love the sound of it, a smile slipping across his own face in response.
“What about you?” She asks.
“I’m worried as well,” He admits. Even before this arrangement with the Midoriya family, Toshinori had seen Izuku most days of the week and it was distressing to feel how the boy’s absence had left what feels like a gaping hole in his life. “But I think this week will be good for him.”
Inko hums in agreement and there feels like there is nothing left to be said. Anxiety sparks in his chest as he scrambles for something to say. Something to discuss. But what is there to say to a woman whose relationship to him is defined by their relationship to her son when the easiest topic has been exhausted.
He finds himself sipping at his water uneasily as the waiter leaves the table, his tongue swollen to the top of his mouth. There has to be something.
“How was work?” Inko asks, breaking the tension.
“It was fine. All the kids are gone, so I don’t have much to do. A lot of the other teachers took interns, so it looks a bit like a ghost town.” He responds and mentally winces that there was nothing there for her to continue off of. He quickly adds, “And you?”
She looks thoughtful for a second before responding, “We have a few management interns from UA actually. I have them going through some of service lines with my managers. Actually, Rika is coming by tomorrow to give a presentation.”
“Oh, she told me about that!” He adds in hoping to keep her talking.
“Hmm,” She hums mostly to herself, “Other than that, it’s mostly the usual. My friend did force this reservation on us once she heard we had the house to ourselves for the week, but that’s really it. Same old, same old.”
A plate is slide in front of him and he is thankful for something to study as he thinks of a response, a question, anything. Sweat beads at his forehead and he can’t help but think again how much easier life seemed as All Might. Inko’s clear laugh brings him out of the thought though a second later.
“What’s so funny?” He asks, clearly hoping to be included in the joke.
She holds up a finger as she cannot seem to stop the laughter yet. A few moments later, still interspaced with the occasional guffaw, she says, “We have no lives.”
This time Toshinori finds his face going toward his palms and it is his turn to laugh. Because she’s right. All both of them have is work and Izuku. The sound gets caught in his palms and he’s hopeful that at least both of them are making joyful sounds instead of sad because they are adults in the forties and fifties without a single thing to say to each other.
“Oh god, I’m pathetic,” He says, breathless.
She giggles and corrects him, “We are pathetic. Okay, there’s only one way to handle this.”
“Oh?”
“Hobbies.” She declares. “We need hobbies.”
“Hobbies?” He repeats back a little thoughtfully. He doesn’t think he ever had a hobby outside of obsessively tracking macros and weight PRs.
“Yes, I tried the social life thing and it didn’t go so well.” A bark of laughter bursts between them at the thought of the Bakugou interaction only a couple of months ago. “I could pick up knitting?”
“You can’t.” Toshinori declares. The words slipping out quicker than he processed that was saying them. “I can’t associate with anyone that uncool. Extreme skiing or nothing.”
Their laughs fill the restaurant and the rest of dinner slips by like sand in the winds.
Neither of them is especially drunk or even truly tipsy. Toshinori had his single doctor approved glass of wine and Inko had one more than him, but they stumble back into the Midoriya apartment a noisy duo of giggles and whispered jokes, trying their best not to disturb the neighbors.
“C’mon,” Inko pulls him to the couch, turning the television on and beginning to sort through something over by the entertainment system.
“What are you doing?” Toshinori asks, his laughter bubbling up on its own.
She turns back from her kneeling position and says, “I have the perfect hobby.”
The input on the television suddenly changes and the speakers announce, “Plus Ultra! Are you READY to battle?”
Toshinori is confused for a second before a dawning embarrassment floods him that the sound is his own voice, “What is that?”
She places a controller in his hand and says, struggling to keep a straight face, “I’m going to kick your butt in your own video game.”
Dropping down next to him, competitiveness overwhelms the shame. Has he ever played the game before? No. But really how hard could it be?
Still clad in their formal clothing, the fabric of his suit jacket pressed against her bare shoulder he says, “Once I figure out how to Detroit Smash you, it’s all over.”
Inko’s first whoop of victory comes only a few short minutes later.
Sorahiko can remember the days when he used to silently and not-so-silently gripe that he wished Toshinori had a brain under all that blonde hair. He is learning that whatever Power-That-Be that had limited Toshinori’s intelligence to split second battle decisions and weigh training calculations was indeed correct in that decision because otherwise you got this. This anxious-overthinking brain child who is stuffed with enough power to destroy all of metro Tokyo if he could just stop shredding tendons and splintering bones because he refused to take his power limits seriously.
Izuku, at least, learned quickly. That seems like a given with how smart the kid is, but was a welcome surprise with how long it took for Toshinori to learn a lesson not broken down into simple metaphors. The boy is on the verge of realizing what Sorahiko is hinting at (re:beating into him), the hero knows. Slowly, Izuku is coming to terms with All Might’s stand your ground and throw exactly one punch is probably not for him. The kid is packed with muscle, but lithe and small. He’s better suited to Sorahiko’s own style of fighting: get in, get out, get gone, repeat.
The stubbornness though will have to be beaten out of him. A lesson that he has had to teach before. Sorahiko can see Toshinori’s worst teenage habits nesting in the child’s bird-nest of a head and that’s a path none of them want to see repeated.
Tomorrow, he’ll do a speed trial around the city and see where they can improve on mobility and flexibility. Then maybe recommend Toshinori sign him up for a gymnastics class and some yoga.
He rubs at his eyes aching in the light of the computer screen and can’t help but think he is too old for this. Another child he gets to help raise for battle against the enemy that has taken every person closest to him.
It doesn’t even feel like the worst of it. The worst part is when Toshinori had been a teenager, wild and angry and ready to run into fights he couldn’t win with a mountain of survivor’s guilt, he had said it in anger, in frustration, in a desperate plea for the boy to just listen.
I hope you have a child just like you.
Sorahiko can feel the pang as he remembers cursing Toshinori with this. A child just like himself. Desperate to prove himself, guilty for things he cannot change, and driven. So, so driven.
At the beginning, there was an almost paternal pride in seeing what Toshinori accomplished over the years. An amazing few years in America where AfO couldn’t touch him, a stunning return to the Japanese hero scene, and the startling climb to Number One Hero All Might, Symbol of Peace. The pride had lasted up until that fight. All for One had taken his boy and put a hand through him. Had reached inside and torn out his organs, not with the intention of a decisive victory, but for a slow, painful death.
He sat in that waiting room with Nighteye, bargaining with a god he didn’t believe in. Not him, not my boy too. Please, please haven’t I lost enough? Hasn’t he given enough?
He stayed silent when Nighteye left and silent as years and years past, just grateful that Toshinori continue to live. The abyss of guilt eats at him though.
What should he have done better? How could he have gotten through to Toshinori?
He had taken America as a victory, had taken each year at UA as a hard-won step in the right direction to keeping Nana’s boy alive. Nana’s boy who had become his boy.
He needs this information now because Toshinori finally understands. He finally gets that All Might is not the way to live and, really, neither is Gran Torino. Two aging heroes with no one but brittle connections to keep them grounded and work that keeps them aching and frail. Sorahiko refuses to allow this cycle to continue. There’s a family depending on it.
Touching the pastry box next to him, the thought slips out with an unsurprising amount of guilt that he would be so bold, His family.
A small amount of rustling pulls him from his midnight thoughts. Most would ignore it, would brush it off as street noise, the creaking of a house that the man and teenager spent the better part of the day destroying. But Gran knew that kind of rustling, he raised a teenager after all. In a moment, he slips out of the window and his quirk silently softening the fall as he lands at the front door.
The door rattles just a second later. Sorahiko watches as Toshinori’s stupid-smart boy keeps his eyes focused in the house as he steadily creeps backwards out of it. He’s in full costume.
Because, of course, he is.
“And where do you think you are going?”
Izuku lets out a squeak, his feet knocking into each other as he spins around to greet the waiting hero and promptly falls on his ass.
“Uh,” The kid stalls.
“Sometime today!”
“Hosu!” He yelps out and then looks surprised by his own admission.
He mentally sighs, Just like you, Toshinori, just like you.
He winces as Hawk’s feathers tear into his character, leaving him with an empty health bar and a massive KO across the screen. From the corner of his eye, he sees Inko let out another massive yawn even as she croons a victory shout. The hustler had admitted to a few too many game nights with Izuku around seven rounds in when Toshinori finally gave in and begged for a basic lesson in controls when button-smashing had proven to be an inefficient strategy.
“I think it might be time for me to head out, Inko.” The man admits. Reluctant as he is the woman does have work tomorrow.
Moving to get up, he finds a hand grabbing his, but the touch is quickly retracted. He finds himself looking into tired, hesitant eyes. Her make-up starting to blur around her lids from the passing of the long night.
“Is everything okay?” Toshinori asks. He watches her bite at her lip and fidget for a moment before he tries again, “Inko?”
“It’s – It’s stupid.” She says, beginning to get up herself to wave him off.
This time he grabs her hand. “It’s not stupid if it makes you worried. I’m here, how can I help?”
Inko ducks her head, “I – I don’t like saying it in front of Izuku, but those villains – All for One – if he knows Izuku’s face, if he tracked him here… It’s stupid! My fifteen-year-old not being here shouldn’t make me feel afraid, but I am! I want to move, but Tsukauchi and Nedzu said that it would make a bigger paper trail and – “ She sits back down on the couch, her face falling into her hands as his grip slips from her’s, “I’m so scared, Toshinori. I’m not brave like you and Izuku. I don’t know how to protect myself and I am so scared.”
Toshinori can’t help the breath that stops in his chest. How could he be so stupid?
He’s seated next to her in a moment, an arm wrapped around her shoulders, the bare skin cold to his touch. He feels a shiver wrack down her back and rubs his hand from her shoulder down to her arm and back.
“That’s an easy fix. I’ll stay here tonight and we’ll figure out something more permanent in the morning.”
Her eyes are shining with tears, “You don’t have to do that. I’m just overreacting.”
That’s the worst part. Inko is definitely not overreacting. He was going to leave her here alone all week with no protection. Izuku had One for All and a provisional license to use it and while he’s sure Inko can do amazing things with her telekinesis quirk, he can’t help but feel stupid and ashamed for the lack of forethought.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. We’re a team, remember?” She stills looks worried even as he gives her what he thinks is his best All Might smile. “Plus, it gives me time to train up with the game. You’re going down next time.”
His statement is punctuated with a more natural smile this time. Something crooked and softer. Something, he’s almost surprised to find is one-hundred percent Toshinori.
And finally, her entire body seems to relax, “Thank you.”