You guys are awesome. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, I didn't think this would attract so much attention. I was so surprised when some of you started to think of theories about the disappearance, and I hope I can meet your expectations!
Plot is kicking in for real this time.
Sencha
As expected, Sekiji never contacted Tokio. And how could she? In all the years they'd known each other, they had never exchanged phone numbers.
It was strange, looking at the table where she usually sat and finding it empty, or worse, seeing someone else. Like she was replaceable. A reminder that the world kept going regardless of the actual people that lived in it. It was cruel.
Tokio hadn't realized how much those tiny moments they shared had meant to her until she was gone, and she recalled one of Sekiji's last questions.
Do you even have friends outside of work?
She had the patrons. Her coworkers. A kid. The stray cats in the alley. Overtime to work and a home to keep tidy. She was fine like that. Or so she had thought, until that tenuous balance had vanished with someone who had taken a piece of her world with her, and what seemed so insignificant turned out to be a significant factor in it, considering the size of her world was so reduced.
She wasn't given any updates on the situation, either, because why should they? Sekiji and Tokio weren't that close. She had no right to access that information. Tokio kept thinking of Aizawa saying that she was better off not knowing, and while she logically knew it had to be for the best, she couldn't help but resent it. The fact that it had been him to tell her probably hadn't helped.
To say that her mood had soured since Kawamura had made an appearance at the café was an understatement. Kanade asked her one day if anything was wrong, and she said she was tired from work, which wasn't a lie completely.
Then again, unbeknownst to Tokio, she was about to take an unwanted vacation.
One morning, she was behind the counter, as always, alone. There were only a couple of occupied tables, and her coworkers were busy in the kitchen. Business was slow after breakfast hours, and she was usually left to front the shop on her own while the others prepared the food for lunch.
The sudden screams outside that pierced the quiet atmosphere of the coffee shop were the only reason that she was able to react in time.
At the same time Tokio turned towards the glass to see what was happening on the street, a car drove into the café at high speed, raining shards into the shop, and as it crashed against the counter and began to tumble towards her, she slowed it to a halt in the air, allowing her to dodge out of the way.
She wanted to check if anybody had been hit, but she couldn't let the car leave her line of sight, and she couldn't leave the counter without looking away. Kitano called her name from somewhere behind the car.
"Get out!" Tokio yelled. "I can hold it off!"
She heard the scrambling of her coworkers and the few patrons that had been inside the café, and slowly, trying to keep as much distance from the car without looking elsewhere, she was about to duck past the kitchen door when she paid attention to the man on the driver's seat. He seemed to be unconscious, and the moment she looked anywhere but the car, he'd crash against the wall at the back of the room.
Tokio's eyes were starting to water when she made a split-second decision.
Not at all confident that she'd be able to pull it off, but unable to just leave him to his fate, she climbed on the counter, getting cut with some shards, reached for the door's handle and found it locked. Tokio felt around her for a piece of a broken mug, stepped back and threw it as hard as she could against the car's side window, but it ricocheted without nicking the glass.
If only she had something hard and sharp nearby, like one of the ceramic knives in the kitchen—
But it was useless to think about it. She was about to blink, and she had tried all she could in the little time she had.
Taking a deep breath, she quickly moved under the part of the counter the car had already passed, covered her head, and the next thing she heard was the sound of the vehicle colliding against the wall. The air filled with a strong sweet odor mixed with oil and gasoline.
When she looked over the counter, she saw the car hadn't flipped over in the end, but the front was smashed in, and, even if she wanted to, there was no way for Tokio now to pry the door open and free the man. The smoke coming from the car was white and smelled sickly sweet. She leapt over the counter and approached him to check, at least, if he was still breathing.
Something sank in the pit of her stomach. She could barely make out his form among the remains of the car. Freeing him was out of the question, and she immediately started to run towards the exit of the café.
The perk of being next to a police station was that several agents arrived immediately. She was urged to get away from the shop and scolded by an officer all the way to a nearby bench for not evacuating before.
It wasn't until she was standing under the sunlight outside, watching the policemen work, that the realization of what had just happened began to set in.
A second later and she would have been dead. Her mind went blank as the meaning of that statement sank in.
A crowd had gathered outside, and Mika, the woman who had been working the kitchen for five years by then, came running to hug Tokio as soon as she saw her.
"Oh my God, are you okay?" She said in a panic. "Why didn't you come out sooner?"
She didn't reply because her brain had decided to disconnect her from reality. Shock, she vaguely recognized. Mika was telling her something, but she wasn't really listening. She had a case of tunnel vision and couldn't make out what she was being told, but she was all too aware of the spectators.
Mika pulled her aside as Kitano also followed, and they sat her on a nearby bench. Kitano fanned air at her with her apron until she came back to her senses, more or less. The world around Tokio didn't seem quite real.
She remembered she hadn't eaten anything since the night before, so that probably wasn't doing her any favors.
"Are you okay?" Mika asked. "The ambulance'll be here in a minute, don't worry—"
"I'm fine," she said with a strangled voice, and lifted a hand to touch her forehead only to see it bloodied. A few glass shards were stuck in her palm, and she plucked out the biggest ones. When she lowered her eyes, she saw her legs weren't in a much better state.
"Oh, no, you're going to the hospital to get checked. Did you get hit? Did you fall?"
Tokio shook her head. "I climbed on the counter to try to get the driver out. I think he was unconscious."
"You should've come out right away! That was police or pro hero work."
"I didn't see any around," Tokio snapped, and regretted it instantly. "Sorry. I didn't think, I—"
"It's okay, don't worry," Mika said with a reassuring smile. "Does it hurt a lot? Should you be taking it out…?"
Tokio glanced at her hand. Mika had a point. She could forget about the glass as long as she wasn't moving it. "You're right. It's best to wait. It's not that bad."
Mika looked at her with incredulity. "If you say so…"
The sirens of the two ambulances deployed announced their arrival soon, and before Tokio knew it, she was getting herded into one despite her reassurances that she didn't feel so bad.
They made her lie down the whole way, in case she got dizzy. Meanwhile, all she could think about was of the overtime she wouldn't be able to put in while the shop was being fixed. Worse, what if the owner didn't think the repairs where worth it? What was she supposed to do without a job? Kanade had enrolled at a private school after getting expelled, and she couldn't pull her out now. They needed the money.
It hit her then that she had left her purse and her phone in the backroom, and she had no means to tell Kanade what had happened. She hoped the news didn't get to her before they could talk.
After a few too many stitches, copious amounts of bandages around her hand and legs, and a warning not to use her right hand to avoid reopening the wound – Tokio was pretty sure at this point that this doctor had someone else do his housework – she was left alone with two policemen who took her statement and afterwards said they'd accompany her home. She told them she still needed to pick up her things from the shop, and though it took some insisting, they relented and escorted her there. She also asked about the driver, but they couldn't tell her anything. Big surprise.
The onlookers were gone, a cordon and investigators taking their place. The sight of the shattered glass, the broken chairs and the smell of the car crash made her stomach churn. The agents had been right. She needed to get home. Maybe eat a proper meal for once, if she could keep it down.
She took her purse, stuffed her regular clothes in a plastic bag and hurried out, doing her best to ignore the remains of the accident. From outside the cordon, she texted Kanade.
'Don't know if you've heard the news but I'm ok. I'll be home soon.'
The reply came immediately.
'what happened?'
'Car crashed into the shop. No one was hurt.' Save for the driver, but that felt unnecessary and still made her uneasy. 'Later.'
"What are you doing here?"
Tokio lifted her eyes to be met with Aizawa's face. Behind him was inspector Kawamura, staring at the wreck. What were they doing there? Didn't they have more pressing business, like finding a missing coworker?
"I came back for my things," Tokio said, lifting the bag with her right hand and wincing as soon as she did. She'd had to watch out for those gestures.
Aizawa seemed to accept that answer, but he kept looking at her, and it felt rude to sidestep him and go on her way. Not that it would top the flying Americano. She was about to ask him if he needed anything else when he spoke again.
"I heard someone stopped the car before it crashed. Was that you?"
She nodded warily. "I saw the car coming towards me and I activated my quirk on reflex."
"Towards you?" He repeated.
She didn't think she had said anything noteworthy. "When it swerved into the shop it hit the counter," she said, pointing towards the café and drawing the trajectory in the air. "Good thing too, because I was the only one behind it. If it had gone in the opposite direction, it would have run over the customers."
"I see," he said thoughtfully. "One of your coworkers stated that you tried to get the driver out of the car."
So he had been around long enough to get an update of the statements at the crime scene. It didn't seem like he was just passing by.
"I couldn't open the door, though, so it was all for nothing. Everybody's been telling me it was stupid to try," she said preemptively.
"It was. Don't rush mindlessly into danger or you'll only add more work to the emergency services."
The overall contents of the warning didn't bother her. It was the implication that she hadn't thought that put her in a decidedly bad mood. Who was he to judge if she had thought before acting? Her first reaction had been to run away, like everybody else. It had taken a conscious effort to stay put and try to save that man.
The fastest way to getting on Tokio's bad side was either hurting Kanade or implying that she was dumb, and this guy was doing magnificently on all fronts.
Feeling like she'd had enough of that man for the rest of the year, she began to walk away with a mechanical 'excuse me'. Aizawa didn't try to stop her or attempt to continue the conversation, so she left without looking back and still feeling like she was walking on air.
Which was probably the reason she felt like she was being watched all the way, or so she told herself. She threw glances over her shoulder every now and then, but she didn't see anybody suspicious. Still, she felt wary about going straight home and giving her address to a potential stalker, so she checked the hour on her phone and decided to buy some groceries, hoping to get rid of that annoying sensation.
She ended up buying less than she wanted, but she had a useless hand and was carrying a bag already. And while she felt at ease inside the supermarket, the moment she got out and resumed her walk home, the feeling of being watched came back.
The sun hadn't set yet, but there weren't many people on the street in her area. It wasn't the safest neighborhood to go on a stroll, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and Tokio was happy to have a decent home. And just when she was about to reach her apartment building, she sensed movement behind her.
"Don't move!" A man's voice said at the same time she turned around.
He was pointing at her with a pocket knife, and he lunged forward when Tokio saw her face.
Something else moved at the edge of her field of vision, but before she could pay any attention to what it was, she pushed aside the arm of the attacker with her forearm, grabbed him by the collar (it hurt), and swiftly keened him under the ribs with as much force as she could muster. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, and she kicked the knife away and took a quick look at the other source of movement while her heartbeat pounded in her ears. It was great that the self-defense lessons of her youth were still paying off, but she'd had enough action that day.
Her legs and hand were screaming bloody murder, but she ignored them in favor of looking at the other man who had been about to enter the scene. "…The hell are you here?"
Shouta Aizawa looked a bit out of place as she glared at him, but he recovered quickly, pulling off his scarf to bind the criminal. "I was following you because I suspected someone else was."
Tokio frowned. How he had reached that conclusion, she had no clue. "And you couldn't come out and tell me?"
"Then he wouldn't have come out." He nudged towards the attacker. "It doesn't look like you needed the warning, at any rate."
"And why did you need him to come out?" She watched him pull out a cellphone and call the police.
He replied after he was done, but he avoided the question. "Are you heading straight home now?"
"I was," she said, tired. "I suppose I need to give a statement now, don't I…?"
He looked at her, at last. "I'll do it. You should get home. Lock the door, the windows, and don't go out until someone comes pick you up. Have your phone charged and within reach."
"…Excuse me?"
"We have reasons to think you are being targeted," Aizawa explained.
"Why?" She could only think of her friend's disappearance, but she didn't know what it had to do with her. "Does this have anything to do with Sekiji?"
"I assume so. Do you live nearby?"
Tokio nodded.
"Then go. Unless you want the full explanation right now, but I think you've had a long day, and the police still need to sort out things."
Tokio's mouth dropped in surprise at his consideration. For a moment, she debated if it was worth waiting until the next day for the full story or if she'd rather stay, but she remembered she had told Kanade she'd be home soon, and she didn't want to worry her more than necessary. If she hurried, she still could hide the bandages on her legs before Kanade got home.
"I'll go home. Thank you," she said, bowing. "See you soon, I suppose."
"Yeah." He simply said, and while he didn't sound too enthused, she didn't notice any animosity in his tone.
After that Tokio jogged to her flat, trying not to pay attention at her injured limbs, and fortified herself inside, unsure what for.
—
She wore mom jeans the next day, because she was a mom and they were a good way to inconspicuously hide the bandages on her legs. So far, she had avoided Kanade noticing them, hand injury being more flashy and all, and the less weak she looked if it was true someone was after her, the better.
It had only been a few minutes since Kanade left for school when her doorbell rang. Tokio dropped back on the basket the pair of socks she was about to fold and opened the door.
It was Aizawa, and he looked sour.
She didn't expect him to be happy to see her, but he seemed to be less thrilled about it than usual.
And she hadn't expected him to be the one to pick her up, so her first reaction was an eyebrow raise that was answered by him mirroring her expression.
"Police station, right?" She asked.
"Right."
The first minutes of the walk passed in an uncompanionable silence.
"How come they sent you to pick me up?"
"Police are busy." He said. Half of his face was hidden under his scarf, and the visible half spelled that he'd rather be elsewhere.
Tokio thought that sounded like a lie. Surely they had an agent to spare. "But it's a school day. Shouldn't you be at Yuuei?"
"Under normal circumstances, yes."
"And these aren't normal."
"Precisely."
Tokio would have rather walked alone to the station. She didn't think anyone would attack her in broad daylight, but then again, she was reticent to believe someone was after her. It wasn't unheard of for a housewife to be mugged in her neighborhood, either.
Tokio eyed her surroundings. The street looked normal. Just people going about their lives, no one shifty in sight. In fact, the most suspicious-looking guy around was the one accompanying her.
Yesterday had been an unlucky day, that was all. It happened sometimes.
"I guess you can't tell me what's going on until we are at the station?"
"Correct."
She took a deep breath. Patience, Tokio, patience.
She tried to change the subject in hopes to get a conversation rolling. "Is another hero covering for you at school?"
"No."
She waited for an elaboration that didn't come. "So what are the kids doing?"
He let out a short, annoyed sigh. "As I'm sure you are aware of, I expelled my class at the beginning of the term. I have more free hours than I usually would."
Tokio didn't like his tone and replied in kind. "Oh, I see. That's why they're using you as an errand boy?"
Aizawa shot her a glare that may have cowed her if she hadn't been on the receiving end of her parents' when she got divorced. Perspective made everything better.
The hallways of the police station were as unwelcoming as ever, and Tokio wondered how Sekiji could stand working there for so long. Aizawa led her to an office in the fourth floor, Kawamura's, according to the plaque. He rapped on the door, and inside was not only the inspector, but also a visitor she couldn't have guessed.
He was like a cross between mouse and a pup, sipping at ease from a teacup she couldn't fathom how he was holding. It wasn't the first time she had marveled at his dexterity, but she had never had the chance of checking up close to see if he had opposable thumbs.
Kawamura's face was as unfriendly as the last time they had spoken, but principal Nedzu smiled pleasantly at Tokio and Aizawa.
"Thank you, Aizawa," he said. "Pleased to see you again, Miss Nakajima."
Tokio couldn't say the same, as the last time they had met the circumstances hadn't been the best: twenty sets of parents sitting in Yuuei's auditorium demanding responsibilities and that their kids' (former) homeroom teacher be fired.
Even Tokio had felt some second-hand embarrassment caught in between all the yelling that ensued in the meeting, though she guessed she had lost any rights to that the moment she had dumped a coffee on the offending teacher. Principal Nedzu was not Aizawa. He had been covering the teacher's ass because that was his job.
Which didn't mean Tokio wasn't still annoyed about him not overruling Aizawa, but that was a subject best put aside at the moment.
She bowed, and he gestured to a chair beside him. Aizawa sat on one at his other side.
Tokio looked at the two people staring at her. Aizawa had crossed his arms and submerged in his scarf again, seemingly ready to take a nap. Come to think of it, Kanade had mentioned something about him sleeping in class.
She threw him a dirty sideways glance and asked at nobody in particular, "What is going on? Eraserhead mentioned that someone may be targeting me."
"That seems to be the case," Nedzu said. Kawamura wasn't a very talkative man, and he seemed happy to do the honors. "You have heard about inspector Sekiji's disappearance, yes? We think both issues are connected."
"I was questioned about it a few days ago. I thought you were working with the idea that she left voluntarily?"
"And you were adamant that it couldn't be, despite circumstantial evidence," Kawamura said. "Eraserhead was of the same mind."
Tokio sent a surprised glance his way, but he didn't react in any way, merely staring at Kawamura with apparent disinterest. She wasn't so sure that was the case, though.
"And you have changed theories?" She asked.
"Think about it this way," Nedzu began. "The first hypothesis only led to us closing the case. What you suggested opened a new path for the investigation, and Miss Sekiji being a police officer—"
"We would have closed the case if she had been a civilian," Kawamura intervened. "But she isn't, and a vanishing inspector isn't something we can overlook."
Impervious to the interruption, Nedzu said, "Are you aware of the case inspector Sekiji was working on alongside Eraserhead, Miss Nakajima?"
"No. We never talked about her work."
Aizawa nodded lightly to himself in the background.
"Good, good," Nedzu said, satisfied. "You see, Sekiji's investigation revolved around organized crime, and there were two main theories after her disappearance:" He lifted just one finger, but he couldn't bend the others all the way, so it looked odd. He did have opposable thumbs. "One, that it was the doing of the group she was investigating. Two, that she had sensed the danger and decided to leave before the situation got uglier. Of course, the police didn't completely discard the first option, but the second was likelier, given how she disappeared."
"It seemed too clean to be a crime," Kawamura admitted, "until yesterday, at least."
"Do you mean the car crash?" When Kawamura made an affirmative gesture, she asked, "How is that related to Sekiji?"
"Inspector Sekiji didn't have many friends," he said. "It comes with the job. So when drawing a list of people to interrogate, your name turned up very soon."
"Anyone who looked into her would find that connection," Nedzu continued. "And you met every day, didn't you? So, say, if she had to confide about her job to anybody... wouldn't you say you are a likely option?"
Tokio looked back and forth between both men. "I told you, she never talked to me about work, and I never asked. Besides, if she had to anything to share, why wouldn't she tell a coworker? She spent all day here."
"A coworker would know she shouldn't be sharing details about the investigation," Kawamura said.
"Inspector, I don't need to be a police officer to know that."
He looked at her sternly, but didn't reply. Tokio felt once again that there was something else at play here. If this was about organized crime, it couldn't have been just Sekiji and Aizawa working on it. There had to have been more people in the investigation that Sekiji could talk to if she wanted. So why would they assume she wanted to talk to someone from outside, specifically?
And speaking of not talking to people… hadn't Aizawa told her something of the sort?
She had thought it was because they didn't want rumors about the investigation, so they kept the info to a limited few. But as far as she knew, Present Mic and Midnight weren't related to the investigation, and they had been two of the four people she had been told to pass info to, if she had anything.
She knew they were friends with Aizawa. Trust was the only thing going for them in this issue. So did that mean Aizawa didn't think he could trust anybody else with info about the case?
Maybe they weren't being so secretive to keep rumors from spreading. People had had to notice at this point that something was going on.
Maybe…
"Do you think there's a mole in the police?" She concluded out loud.
There was a shift in atmosphere, like her question had broken whatever was tensing the air. Kawamura's shoulders squared, Nedzu looked at her curiously, and Aizawa didn't look sleepy anymore when he turned to look at her.
"Why would you think so?" Nedzu asked.
"Because if Sekiji was worried about the investigation, I don't see how she couldn't tell one of her coworkers. Her speaking to me would only make sense if she trusted them less than me, and we weren't that close. Besides," Tokio added. "I was told to only speak to inspector Kawamura or Eraserhead if I remembered something that stood out."
"Or Mic, or Midnight," Aizawa spoke up.
"Because you know you can trust them, right?"
Aizawa made an affirmative sound, and no one denied her theory.
Nedzu smiled. "This saves us time indeed," he said cordially. "It's as you say, so we need to ask you that you don't speak of this to anybody."
"I think that's enough." Kawamura's voice was gruff. "I don't like this one bit."
There was an unspoken accusation in the air.
"Do you suspect me now?" Tokio asked, tentatively.
"You've come to a conclusion quickly. Too quickly to not know anything."
There he was, yet another person assuming she was stupid because she served coffees for a living. She had noticed the tendency among police and pro heroes early on, shortly after she'd dropped out of school and had had to deal with having a super smart and successful hero at home while she looked after a baby.
She bit back a scathing comment that would have gotten her in trouble.
"The fact remains that someone attacked her yesterday on her way home," Aizawa said, surprising her, "and the car crash was likely another attempt. Given what we've told her, it's not hard to put two and two together. I think she's clear."
"They could be trying to get rid of her after she isn't useful anymore," Kawamura countered. "We can't tell."
"But that won't be a problem, will it?" Nedzu said in a conciliatory tone. "We've gone over this possibility before."
"…Right." Kawamura conceded.
"Perfect." Nedzu clapped his hands. "So, Miss Nakajima, since you are sadly a suspect in this case, but most importantly, a likely target, we are going to install an alarm system in your home and assign am escort to you—"
Aizawa tensed in his seat and began to speak, alarmed. "Hey—"
At the same time, Tokio said with obvious incredulity, "You're going to put me under surveill—"
"—so you can remain safe while the investigation is wrapped up. Surely you have wondered why I am here—"
"Principal," Aizawa insisted, but he was ignored.
"—and the reason would be that I'm lending one of Yuuei's teachers to the task, since his schedule has been rather empty since a certain incident we shall not name, and he was involved in Miss Sekiji's case to begin with."
Aizawa was petrified in his chair, eyes wide at Nedzu and mouth open in indignation.
Tokio wondered if this was a punishment from the gods for her caffeinated vengeance.
No, more likely, it had to be a punishment from Nedzu to Aizawa for all the shit he'd had to deal with after he mass-expelled his students.
"No," was her reply.
"I agree," Aizawa said.
"The decision isn't up to you," Kawamura said, glaring at the two of them. Aizawa looked like he wanted to say many things, and no doubt they would offend every person in the room.
Nedzu ignored the tension in the air and kept talking with the same calm, pleasant tone that admitted no objections. "I understand that you have a few days off from work while your workplace is repaired, and while you may stay home alone, we ask that you give us notice when you need to leave your apartment so your escort can be with you."
"This is absurd," she said. "I don't need a bodyguard for daily life."
"Again," Kawamura replied, "that isn't for you to decide."
"What am I supposed to do, call every time I need to go to the corner store?"
"I object as well," Aizawa intervened, and for a change, he and Tokio were on the same page. "Give this job to someone else. I should be catching villains, not tailing civilians."
"You should be teaching a class," Nedzu said, never losing his smile, but the way his eyes glinted indicated danger, "and since you cannot do that anymore, this is what Yuuei will have you do instead. You can keep heroing at night, as always. Unless Miss Nakajima is fond of late night outings?"
"I think not," she said drily.
Nedzu smiled at her. "Then it's settled. Since your daughter goes to a hero course, we think she'll be reasonably protected during her lessons, but we have made the necessary arrangements with the school anyway. We'll have someone to protect her outside," Nedzu said, as if the situation was fun while it was very much not, and gave Tokio a slip of paper. "This is professor Aizawa's schedule at school. Please try to not make appointments outside of home during the few lessons he has."
As she stared at the paper, she thought she could mentally fill the gaps with Kanade's old schedule, and then she conveniently remembered that she had a daughter who needed to be somewhat clued into this. She was pretty sure that it would be easier to explain that someone was trying to kill her than telling her that the person supposed to avoid it was her former homeroom teacher.
Tokio let out a mix between a resigned sigh and a groan, and fanned herself with the schedule while Nedzu and Kawamura vacated the office, leaving her alone with Aizawa, whose face was hidden behind his scarf and the hand rubbing his forehead. Much to her chagrin, she shared his feelings.
