Chapter Text
It's not a particularly dangerous-feeling night.
There's a little cloud cover but for the most part stars shine through the gaps where light pollution from the city below allows them to be seen, it's warm with a cool enough breeze to be pleasant in light clothing, and there's nobody lingering suspiciously on street corners or picking fights outside of corner bars.
Whether it feels dangerous or not matters little to the fact that, undeniably, death has graced the evening's streets with a heavy hand.
The latest in a string of murders brings Aizawa Shouta to an otherwise quiet mid-district set of apartment blocks hugging the edge of Musutafu. He's not supposed to be the one on the scene, but this one happened to be in his patrol loop when it was called in, and he knows they won't refuse his help.
Previous killings have been scattered across a number of unrelated locations, but they're consistent – a very bloody scene left in the wake of an attack with no clear sight of the attacker, with no seeming connection to any political or criminal activity. The people involved just seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with most likely an opportunistic murder.
Aizawa flattens his mouth into a thin grim line.
Nothing good is going to come out of this patrol.
-
He can smell the blood long before he sees the corpse itself, even as he perches on a power pole to survey the area. Harder to get the jump on him when there's only one access point. A roof for surveying this sort of scene is too risky when there's someone out there killing anyone they happen to encounter.
Between two apartment buildings, in the small walkway to a back set of units, he can see a dark mass on the ground. It shines with an oily pallor, so either someone dropped their trash bag on the way to the road, or it's what he's looking for. If he were a gambling man, he would not put his money on the former option.
Another quick scan of the immediate area shows nothing moving; nobody's nearby and the police are yet to show. Still, he remains on guard as he drops silently to the ground and approaches the pathway.
The smell of death intensifies as he draws near, and in the shadows cast by the streetlamps, he can faintly make out the ragged shape of a human. His pocket-light flicked out between two fingers and a thumb casts illumination on the scene but does nothing to alleviate the growing apprehension coiling hot in his chest.
There's definitely no way this person is alive, and nothing can be done to change that.
The victim is a man in maybe his late twenties, dark hair, and casual clothes.
The rest is completely indiscernible.
Something savage and immensely strong has all but eviscerated the man; blood pools slowly outward from cracked maimed limbs, his shirt is entirely shredded to the point where it's little more than a ragged cloth laid flat beneath him, and his ribcage is exposed to the night, shattered in half and wrenched open to get at the entrails within. There's not much left inside his body cavity, most of which now looks like it's been put through a meat grinder. The hot tang of gore is overwhelming.
A series of deep puncture wounds at the throat confirm it to be a continuation, with the previous murders all showing the same pattern. Blotches stain the skin purple and black where damage is very clearly deep and deadly. Something would have seized the man with inhuman force and enough crushing power to snap his neck instantaneously. Aizawa wrinkles his nose.
This corpse is fresh.
Exposed and ravaged remains still glisten, and none of the blood has dried where it's been spattered across the walls and pavement. The call was put in ten minutes ago, but whoever did this obviously kept up their little sport before abandoning it right before he got here.
Tension in his body coils tighter than before, and he itches to reach for his capture weapon draped about his shoulders.
The killer must be very close by.
Aizawa makes his way back to the road, every fibre of his being clamoring with alarm bells and telling him to run. It's not a feeling he's unused to, but it's the sort of feeling that makes people trigger-happy. He can't afford to lose his focus for a second, or he'll slip up and get killed. Better heroes have been defeated by less.
It's a waiting game.
Eyes flicking from every shape on the road, he decides the power pole again is the best vantage point. Easy to survey the scene, and nothing can hide behind the cars parked on the roadside from such a high view. A glance upwards at the slow drifting black patches of night-bruised clouds tells him rain could be on the way, and he curses under his breath.
This better wrap up quickly, or things will get a lot harder.
The crunch of weight pressing loose stones into concrete alerts him.
Something is moving beside him – no, below him? He turns his head as subtly as he can without giving his position away, but can't quite see anything in the shadows. Whoever it is must be aware of his presence, or at least smart enough to use stealth tactics – bystanders don't move with quiet grace or keep to the shadows. Briefly he checks in with the police line, but the nearest cruiser is still the next district over and there are no other heroes patrolling the area at this time of night, so he's certain whatever made the noise is not an ally.
He hunches down further onto the top of the power pole, one hand hooked into the coils of his capture weapon, the other pressed hard against the pole's surface for stability. In the distance he can hear the hum of traffic, the far-off lights of the central city, the muffled noise of a dog barking.
Nothing else stirs in his immediate vicinity.
Minutes pass in silence.
He's painfully aware of the ache building in his joints from staying so still for so long. A solid decade of doing this hasn't been easy on him, but he hasn't been easy on it right back. Vigilance always has its payoffs, though. He would wait until he had to move, and not a minute sooner.
Metal fixtures creak under the strain of something heavy, and he looks up sharply. There was an emergency stairwell in that alleyway, but it's shrouded in shadows and he can't–
There. There's a silhouette crawling its way up the railing of the stairs, too big to fit in the stairwell itself and resorting to climbing the outside of it. It's dextrous for its size, and he can see long tapering fingers allowing it to move with ease. It almost slithers in its grace up onto the roof and disappears from view, and that's all the head start he gives it before he makes his move.
Not knowing what he's up against, climbing directly to that same rooftop would be illogical and dangerous. His painstaking scouting out of the area has made him aware of every vantage point he could have for every immediate position, and the best view he'd have is from the building behind the murder scene closing up the back end of the alley, provided they haven't moved on too fast. He's not sure about their range of movement, but leaping between two buildings unaided would be impossible for a human without a supporting quirk or equipment, so it's a start.
He swings his way down from the powerpole with practiced ease and hits the ground running. If he can skirt around the building he's aiming to climb rather than go directly up it and have his back to the one he's wanting to scout out, all the better.
Before he has a chance to reach his target, he hears the unearthly screech of rusted metal giving way. Whoever it is up there tried to climb something unsteady and lost their gamble against gravity. He curses under his breath as they toss the corroded metal against the roof tiles with a resounding clang, and retraces his steps.
This person knew he was here from the moment he arrived, and now very much knows that their presence has been detected with the noise. They're not going to care much about stealth, so the most Aizawa can do now is get up to the rooftop as quickly as possible and hope he can outmaneuver them hand-to-hand.
Movement in his peripheral vision catches his eye.
He looks up in time to see a hunched figure, its form shadowed in rags or maybe long coarse fur, as it rushes with inhuman speed along the rooftop. He's already on the way up, his capture weapon tangled around the highest banister of the emergency staircase as he scales the wall with as much speed as he can muster. As he hooks one arm over the edge of the roof, he sees the figure leap clean across to another building, completely ruling out the possibility of this not being quirk-related, and by the time he vaults himself up proper, it's gone without a trace.
The long grey scarf winds itself back around his shoulders and he tucks his face into it, frowning. Telltale red and blue lights of a police car light up the street below as backup finally arrives. The lead officer, cat-headed Tamakawa Sansa, greets Aizawa with familiarity.
Aizawa notes with appreciation that the officer's ears do not remain still, twitching towards any nearby sounds that might be regarded as suspicious.
“The perpetrator was still around, but I haven't been able to catch proper sight of them yet. Very agile, very stealthy, but doesn't seem confrontational and probably hasn't left for good.”
Tamakawa rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Interesting. Is it a similar case to the previous murders?”
“Exactly the same,” Aizawa confirms with a nod.
The officer signals to someone Aizawa can't see past the glare of the car headlights. “We'll keep an eye on the scene. We need to make sure the body is moved and identified before the residents wake up. See if you can track down the killer – if the body is what they want, you might be able to apprehend them while we clean up.”
Putting the half-thought plan into action was a fool's errand, but there's only time for regret if he gets out of this alive.
Aizawa had headed down a couple of the back streets in the vague direction that the figure had disappeared in, and after close to an hour come across something that was unmistakeably whoever – or whatever it was that killed and ate the victim. What else could ravage viscera and bite through neck flesh and bone as efficiently as something with teeth like those?
It's very obviously not human, or at least what a regular human might be defined as. He's seen plenty of morphic quirks, permanent physiological traits that give certain animal qualities – some like officer Sansa, others even more than facial features – but this is something entirely different.
It stands on two legs but awkwardly hunched, as if it were top-heavy, certainly not helped by its disproportionately long arms. Its face features a long canine muzzle wreathed in steam from its panting hot breath. Claws tip its digits, and every inch of it is covered in dark fur. It has a thick tail that remains staunchly angled out behind it, a wary signal often seen in dogs, and of its rough angular ears, the left one has a prominent chunk taken out of it.
Discs flare in its eyes as its tapeta lucida catch the streetlight, and its gaze flicks over him, studying him. He's not sure if it considers him prey or predator, but given what it seems to have done to several other victims, he knows very well what it can do to him if he makes a mistake.
“Well, first things first,” he grumbles to himself, and proceeds to make a mistake.
He knows he can't restrain it or even halt it by himself, or at least it would be foolish to try without backup, with both its size and strength working against him. But even physiological quirks are restricted to looks rather than a certain loss of humanity, so he's fairly certain this is a transformation of sorts. His eyes flare red behind his goggles.
The monster lowers its head and snarls at him, the fur on its neck raising into a bristling mane.
“Shit,” he says in a way that denotes inconvenience rather than the urgency of impending death, and dives to the side as it lunges, fangs bared and gleaming a stark ivory under yellow lamplight. Its foreclaws bite into the concrete he was standing on barely a second ago, leaving heavy scores raking through it as it grips the pavement to pivot around, its tail whipping through the air to keep its balance. When he doesn't move beyond evading it, however, it hesitates, though its focus is very much pinpoint on him and its teeth remain very visible.
Time for the next tactic.
“Stand down,” he orders in a low growl. Its ears flick upright towards the source of his voice, but he's not sure if it can even understand him – a thought that becomes more of a certainty when it raises its hackles again and growls back at him. Beads of condensed moisture drip from its muzzle.
It takes a step forward, its movement muffled despite its size by thick pawpads skirted around by long swathes of fur. Its hindclaws are shorter and stockier than its arms, but he can see the way that its toes flex into the motion like built-in suspension, and the muscles in its legs are obvious even in the low light. This thing is a predator through and through, and even if he ran it would outpace him easily. So he holds his ground.
That turns out to be the second mistake.
He's the only thing standing in the way of this monster and the clear path back to its prey, where the police crew are still clearing up the gruesome scene. If he lets it past, chances of casualties skyrocket.
Time to test the limits of his capture weapon and physique, then.
It drops into a crouch, most likely aiming to leap over his head, so he sends out a loop of his scarf to snag around its hind leg the moment it begins its motion. The result is comically successful; its midair flight is cut brutally short as Aizawa pulls the weapon downwards, driving the beast straight into the sidewalk. It lands heavily, a section of the path splitting under the force of it, and it shrieks in indignation as it tries to tug its leg free.
He doesn't give it pause, and immediately throws another loop to secure its other leg, lashing both limbs together. It kicks out, bucking its entire body, before rolling over and slamming its foreclaws into the ground and dragging its upper torso around to face him.
Seems like he made it a little too personal.
If it didn't want to hurt him now, he's inconvenienced it enough that it's now focused on him instead of getting back to the corpse. He's blandly aware of the power imbalance. He's like a raven annoying an eagle; it could snap his neck without a care.
A fabric restraint does nothing if the target is suddenly moving towards the source, and it's very much hauling itself towards him with murderous intent. There's too much to focus on, a realization he makes all too late as its immense strength lets it wrench its legs free of the tangled bindings, and it closes the final distance faster than he anticipated. A failed dodge out of the way catches him a heavy hit solidly in the middle of his back, and he's sent staggering, his capture weapon trailing behind him like limp bandages.
It looms over him, breath heavy with the sickening tang of blood.
Without warning, a blinding light flares into being, driving shadows into stark background silhouettes beneath an all-consuming plane of white.
Aizawa is forced to blink under the intensity of it, but the humanoid monster visibly flinches away, pawing at its eyes as it lets out a strangled snarling whine.
As his eyes adjust, he can see the thing clearly as it gets its bearings again and staggers back upright.
Its fur is beautiful. Initially appearing black, when the light hits it directly a hidden sheen of iridescence flares along its entire body, a deep forest green picked out in highlights. Thick mats of its fur string out from its lower jaw and neck, twisted together with drying blood from its attack earlier. He doesn't have much more time to observe it though, because it lets out a full-throated roar and charges him head-on.
On the ground he's only seen it move on two legs with its arms as an aid in motion, but now it moves on all fours with the speed he saw it using on the open rooftops; two bounds and it's closed the distance, and he has barely time to twist out of the way. It was aiming to collide directly with him, likely to send him flying, but it still bulls into his shoulder and knocks him heavily off balance.
He rolls with the motion up onto his feet again, sweeping out an arc of capture weapon in the wake of his momentum, but it leaps above the loop of fabric, claws finding purchase in the brickwork of the nearest building. It clambers up the wall as if the structure were a minor inconvenience rather than a high-rise vertical surface, using the window ledges and its incredible reach with all four limbs to scale the apartment, towards –
The blinding spotlight blinks out suddenly, plunging the entire scene into relative pitch black, and Aizawa throws himself behind where he knows a car to be parked to get at least a little more cover than could be afforded by standing uselessly out in the open. Grumbling under his breath, he shuts his eyes and waits for the spots seared into his vision to fade away so he can see in the low light of night. There's noises of a scuffle on the rooftop ahead, accompanied by shouts and deep growling, but he can't see anything going on, so it's all he can do to hold position and wait.
This is the worst sort of patrol, he thinks sourly to himself. Blinded and overpowered. There's only so far erasure and hand-to-hand combat will get when your opponent is both immune and immensely more powerful.
He stays until he's able to discern shadow from darker shadow, before he moves from his position back towards the building the light had originated from. Soft glowing from windows are starting to pick up as residents are awakened by the commotion. He diverts course down a side road to prevent bystanders from seeing him – bad for underground business if he's witnessed at every night scene. This has already gone on for long enough.
Hot breath at his back is the only forewarning he gets, and he drops to the ground, narrowly dodging the open-handed slash aimed at where his head had been. Chips of brickwork shower his uniform, and he's forced to twist out of the way as it slams its other hand into the ground, trying to pin him.
He's not sure if instinct or luck is on his side, but he's not one to shrug off an opportunity when his capture weapon loops around its neck, diverting its path sideways. It staggers for only a moment, but it's all he needs. His back against the ground in leverage, he pulls its head downward as hard as he can while simultaneously kicking upwards. His boot connects forcibly with its exposed throat, forcing its maw shut with a snap.
There's no time to celebrate his minor success though, as it immediately arches its head down towards him. Its teeth crash shut within inches of his face, and belatedly he realizes it's taken hold of the capture weapon in its jaws only moments before he's lifted bodily from the ground by that and one of its massive hands, and hurled into the street.
He has to roll with the motion, feeling his shoulder strike concrete hard, briefly wonders if it's cracked his collarbone, before pushing himself back up to his feet. His hair is in his eyes, tangled from the constant motion, and he doesn't have time to move it out of the way –
The lights come back again, brighter and closer, from somewhere behind him, and he's aware suddenly of people standing at his back. The beast stops mid-stride, a guttural howl echoing in the back of its throat as it grates to a halt in the face of solid opposition, and for a brief second Aizawa notices it assessing him, assessing the situation.
Evidently it does not like its odds, because it turns sharply and bolts back down the side street out of view. He can hear it moving farther and farther away before the night city swallows it, and it's gone.
Aizawa gets to his feet in time for the bright lights to turn their focus onto him, turning his entire vision solid white for a brief moment.
“Halogen, cut that out, you're giving me a headache.”
The spotlight hero fades out the blinding glare apologetically. “Sorry, Eraser. Didn't know it was you. Your eyes okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Aizawa grumbles. He'd like to rub the flares out of his sights, but it's probably safer for now to just keep his goggles in place. “Had worse. Got a good look at it, anyway.”
He scratches the back of his head where the strap of his goggles digs into his scalp a little. Might need adjusting. Should get a new capture weapon while he's at it – this one's looking a little bit run down after being chewed by an oversized dog. “Thought it was a transformation, but it didn't revert when I erased its quirk.”
“Really? Something that wild can't have been someone with a mutation quirk, unless they've really gone off the deep end. Better make this a priority, huh?”
Aizawa's mouth twists slightly with displeasure. “I'd like to, but the new year of UA starts soon. Besides, I was hardly useful this time around. Someone better suited can try next.”
Sansa joins the pair, looking somewhat put out.
“It got away then?” He sighs, not waiting for a response; the expression on the heroes' faces is answer enough. “Well, we got the scene cleared up as best we can. It'll remain cordoned off for a couple of days while we reroute the residents of the apartment and make sure it's free of biohazards, and maintain a post of security for a week or two. From there, we'll try and work on prevention ahead of capture, so any information you managed to pick up tonight will help.”
“Yeah. I'll write up the report.” Aizawa tips his head in the direction of the spotlight hero beside him. “I'll forward a copy to your agency in case there's anything you want to review.”
“Ah, good,” Halogen says, grinning in his bright irksome way that manages to pick on Aizawa's only nerve left for dealing with people in general. “I'll see ya around, Eraser. Don't forget to sleep!”
Aizawa hunches further into his scarf and elects not to respond as he turns on his heel and leaves.
Stars push their way through the clouds once more to maintain their vigil on the now-empty streets, and the night stays dry as it relinquishes its grip to the slow creep of dawn.
-
Midoriya wakes up curled between a dumpster and a tipped-over garage can in an unfamiliar alleyway.
At the very least, it looks unfamiliar in the slow dawn light, but he can detect the unmistakable scent of home not too far away as an undercurrent to the trash surrounding him, so he's not too worried. He lets himself stretch out a little, as if waking from a good night's rest, and then sits for a moment, waiting.
Standing up takes a bit of effort. His legs and hands are shaking, and he has to brace himself on the dumpster's edge to stop from wobbling right over onto the ground again. His stomach heaves, and he bends heavily into the dumpster and vomits. Blood spatters the trash within, trailing in thick streams from his mouth and nose, but the episode doesn't last long. Still with gore dripping from his face – he's careful to not let any slide down his neck and stain his clothes – he fishes around in one of his pockets before pulling out a handful of napkins and a packet of wet wipes he'd stuffed in there for this exact reason.
There's a few scratches on his arms, but they're already fading as he checks them over. Gravel scrapes, perhaps. He picks a small fragment out of one of them before the skin knits itself back together without any sign there had ever been a cut.
Unperturbed by this otherwise horrific series of events, Midoriya finally peels a couple of wipes out of the pack, wipes his mouth and hands with them, and conceals the entire lot beneath a loose sack of garbage.
There's an early morning mist and nobody on the nearby streets when he picks his way out of the alley into a more public area. He's glad, because it means he hasn't overslept and has a good chance of making it home before his mother wakes up.
At any rate, he's feeling particularly hungry, and he's not overly eager to miss breakfast again.