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Shouta doesn’t bother trying to track down the vigilante Tsukauchi had told him about.
It’s less because he doesn’t care and more that he has bigger things to deal with than someone getting a kick out of stopping purse snatchers. From what Tsukauchi had said, it doesn’t sound like there’s any serious injuries involved or any known deaths they can attribute to the vigilante, and no one in the general public seems to have any awareness of them.
Whoever they are, they don’t seem interested in attention – maybe a bit preoccupied with fighting, maybe with an overinflated sense of justice and self-righteousness, or maybe someone out for an adrenaline rush. In fact, their habit of leaving notes pointing towards additional evidence suggests they’re interested in working with law enforcement rather than taking their place. It’s possible they have a track record of their own preventing them from getting a hero license or a job with law enforcement, but that’s nothing more than speculation. Shouta’s not involved with the investigation itself, anyway, so they would know better than he would.
No, his patrols are busy enough without adding vigilante-hunting to the list. He'd been able to coexist somewhat peacefully with the vigilantes littering the streets in Naruhata, even if he'd strongly disagreed with their methods. Shouta's not doing his job any justice if he's expending effort on tracking someone who hasn't caused all that much of a problem when he could be saving a life or stopping an attack.
Despite not actually tracking the vigilante, Shouta still sees them around here and there. Never long enough to do anything about it, though. He almost, almost catches them one time when he comes across the vigilante fighting a burglar, but he's forced to give up the chase to prevent the would-be criminal from escaping. Shouta curses under his breath as he hauls the burglar off for processing - the duffel bag full of jewelry still bearing price tags takes out any ambiguity from the situation.
At the very least, the brief encounters give him a better idea of who he's dealing with. Whoever the vigilante is, they're not an amateur, clearly trained in martial arts of an unknown discipline. Given the hyper-awareness of their surroundings, he'd guess they spent time in the military. It's at odds with their unusually small build; though their clothes are baggy enough to disguise their general shape, there's no hiding their stature. If he hadn't seen them fighting he would have guessed they were still in high school, especially given that their weapons of choice are reminiscent of a ninja's.
--
Shouta's big break comes in the form of two mid-level villains, Silencer and Morita Tatsuo. He's been after them for a while, his urgency bolstered by the brutal murders of their victims, so when he hears they've been spotted not far from his location he doesn’t waste any time getting there.
There's an eerie silence surrounding the area and for a moment he thinks he's too late, that he's going to come across another dead girl that will be forever seared into his mind.
That's not what he finds at all. The vigilante is already there, locked in combat with Morita while Silencer strides towards a figure crumpled on the ground. For a moment he thinks the vigilante is too occupied with Morita to do anything about Silencer, but Shouta bursts into action before he's fully even registered what just happened, that he'd just stopped some sort of blade mid-air from hurtling straight through the villain's neck.
This vigilante just went from a relatively harmless mugger stopper to an attempted murderer.
Shouta's unexpected arrival gives him a crucial edge in the fight as his capture weapon wraps around all three of them before they'd even registered his presence. His quirk flares into action, his weapon slamming the two villains' heads together with a sickening crack. They're too dangerous to leave conscious, especially when Shouta has the vigilante to contend with. Not that he thinks the vigilante in any condition to fight, if the blood rapidly staining his scarf is anything to go by.
He may be cold, but he's not heartless. The moment Shouta’s checked that yes, the victim is only unconscious and in no danger of dying, he pulls out his phone and crouches next to the prone, gasping vigilante. He frowns as he realizes just how small they really are.
He taps out a quick message with their location and the need for medical attention to the on-duty officer that night while examining what he can see of the injury, which isn't much. His capture weapon is covering it up and he's not stupid enough to loosen it when he's seen what this guy is capable of, not unless it's absolutely necessary. "How bad is it?"
He doesn't think the vigilante is going to answer, and when they do he almost wishes they’d kept quiet so he wouldn’t have to deal with this. "It's about five inches long across the ribs. No organ damage, but it hit bone," a child's voice says in a clipped tone of voice.
"You're a kid," Shouta says faintly, feeling like a bucket of ice water had just been emptied over his head, because there's no mistaking it.
There's no way their vigilante is even in high school yet. He’s not even old enough for his voice to start cracking. The small stature suddenly makes a terrifying amount of sense.
The cognitive dissonance gets even worse as the boy speaks again, sounding more irritated than hurt despite the fact that bright red blood is starting to drip from the now-soaked fabric of Shouta's binding cloth. "That's not really relevant right now. I have gauze in my belt," he says, as if getting a knife cut down to the bone is an everyday occurrence instead of an injury that could have easily clipped an artery. Cool eyes meet Shouta's gaze steadily, a jarring mismatch of color that he can’t quite make out in the low light. Even the pupils are different from each other. "If you want to make yourself useful, help me wrap this so I don't bleed out as soon as you let go of me with your capture weapon."
Shit. Shit. There's a kid bleeding out right in front of him and he's just staring at him. Screw the safety measures, there's no way he can sit here and do nothing while they wait for the paramedics to show up. It's likely only adrenaline keeping the kid calm right now. His hands tremble minutely as he pulls bandages and gauze out of his own pack, but he keeps his voice steady and calm to prevent panicking the boy. "What the hell are you doing out on the streets like this? You can't be older than thirteen."
The boy doesn't respond, unsurprisingly. Shouta carefully loosens the capture weapon so he can get to the wound, his breath catching in his throat as he gets a good look at just how deep it really is. It's high enough that it won't have hit any organs, like the kid had said, and he notes with no small amount of relief that blood isn't spurting like it would be if it had nicked an artery. It won't be fatal.
Shouta won't have to watch another child die.
"You're awfully calm about this," he mutters as he quickly wipes away what dirt and grime he can see in the dim lighting. He'll have to leave the rest for the medical professionals - for now, the most important thing is to stem the bleeding. Someone this small doesn't have a lot of blood to lose before it becomes dangerous.
"I've had worse," the kid says and Shouta fumbles with the bandage, his fingers feeling stiff and unresponsive as he processes the implications in that phrase.
"That's not comforting." At all. Nausea rolls in his stomach, a combination of the stench of blood on a child and the memories that brings to the forefront of his mind, and now the insinuation that whatever life this boy has lived has resulted in injuries severe enough to make a gash like this seem trivial in comparison.
He can hear sirens echoing in the distance and knows that if he's going to say anything before he's taken away, before he's returned to his parents or whoever else he lives with and Shouta never sees him again, he has to speak now. He's not sure he can bring himself to tell the officers that this is their vigilante, not when he doesn't know what his fate will be. He tries to imagine a kid this young being put in an institution for delinquents and wants to vomit at the thought.
"This isn't the way to become a hero, kid," he says, a tinge of desperation in his voice. He's never wished more that he had a way with words, that he knew what to say to get his point across. He wishes Hizashi was here with him. He'd know what to say. "Vigilantism is closer to villainy than heroism, and you could be in a lot of trouble if you get caught, even at your age." He swallows roughly, tucking the edges of the gauze into the makeshift bandage and pressing his hand against it to keep as much pressure on the wound as possible. Blood is already starting to soak through, warm and tacky between his fingers. "You almost killed a man tonight - that's not the actions of a hero, not unless it's absolutely necessary. There are programs out there, high schools that can help you become a hero the right way."
Like U.A., he wants to say, but then, that's not really true. A kid like this, whose quirk is most likely mind-based, would stand almost no chance at beating the exam. He'd be forced to take the long, painful route like Shouta himself did through Gen Ed with the hope of getting an almost unheard-of transfer into the Hero course. And odds are, the chances wouldn't be much better at most of the other hero schools. That’s if he even makes it in to begin with.
"No one would want a hero like me," the boy says. His face is still almost completely covered, only his shadowed eyes visible. But Shouta can hear the bitter smile in those words, the resignation of someone all too aware of how the system is stacked against them.
"You don't know that," Shouta lies. He doesn't mean to stop there. He has more he wants to say. But his body isn't cooperating, muscles going lax and eyes burning as he loses even the ability to blink of his own accord. His mind fogs over, losing all ability to comprehend or interpret anything happening around him. His capture weapon falls to the ground in limp coils.
He thinks he might hear the boy apologizing, but the words are lost in the wind before he can make sense of them.
The kid disappears just seconds before paramedics and police officers burst onto the scene. They have no idea the vigilante was even there, wasting precious time trying to get Shouta to snap into awareness instead of chasing after the boy, and by the time the quirk wears off it's way too late.
He's gone.