It had been another long, long day at the office for Kenji Tsuragamae.
He was the Chief Of Police born with a Quirk that gave him the appearance of a canine. In spite of his rather "special" feature to say the least, he still managed to work hard and rise in the ranks. It took a lot of time, dedication, and discipline to get to where he was, but it was worth it in the long run.
Kenji was a man that wanted fairness above all else - he believed that the law should be interpreted in a way that upheld such a standard. For instance, when a group of U.A. students used their Quirks without authorization in order to aid in the capture of the Hero Killer Stain, he chose to sweep it under the rug.
Why?
Because it was the right thing to do.
Yet now he was under an immense amount of pressure to find the villain, or villains, responsible for the death of a beloved detective - Naomasa Tsukauchi, as well as the brave men and women who died in a rather "peculiar" fire at a police station in Tokyo several weeks ago.
Technically, the incident was ruled as nothing more than a freak accident, but the public knew that something didn't add up. Kenji had no leads, no witnesses, nothing - yet he was expected to perform a miracle.
The man who upheld fairness was put in a rather unfair situation.
But that came with the territory.
As investigations continued, there were rather strange details that came flooding into his office.
For starters, there had been reports of a drug infestation affecting the populace in Tokyo called "Trigger." It was a drug that could enhance the Quirks of those who ingested it at the cost of the user's sanity and reason. Thankfully, local law enforcement managed to capture a few cases of the dangerous drug and trace the source of its origin back to the Naruhata ward - and that was when details began to become eerie.
There was a victim of the police fire that many mourned. He was a boy that had apparently been put into holding for a misunderstanding. Facial reconstruction put him at the age of fifteen or sixteen, and his name was Izuku Midoriya. The tragedy of a teenager's death, someone who was locked up under false pretenses, put the police under even more pressure to get to the bottom of it all.
But there had been odd reports of sighting the boy in the Naruhata Ward.
On Kenji's desk was a picture of a building within the Naruhata Ward, but in the background a local hero who is now deceased by the name of "The Crawler" was shown carrying a boy on his back that looked oddly similar to Izuku Midoriya. Unfortunately the piece of evidence could not yet be verified.
With a huff Kenji sat back in his chair in his office. On his wall was a picture of All Might smiling brightly. It spurred him on as it did so many others. He couldn't give up now, he had no keep going - there was no time to mope around.
As he sat back up in his chair and began to go over all of the evidence one more time a police officer knocked on his door.
"Come on in," Kenji said.
The officer, a man with a scruffy beard, entered the room.
"Sir, we have someone in custody that we thought you would like to speak to."
Kenji's ears perked up, although his expression remained impassive.
"Oh? Who is it?"
The officer paused for a moment before he spoke. "Well, I'm not sure if we can verify his identity yet, but he claims to be Izuku Midoriya."
The last time Izuku was in an interrogation room he was terrified.
Yet now, he was calm.
He had gone over in his head over a dozen times the facade that he would put up, as well as the excuses that he would make for each and every possible scenario that his mind could conceive.
Still, he knew better than to be overconfident. He couldn't play the fool, because they were aware that he was at the police station when Tsukauchi was killed along with the rest of his colleagues. He had an answer prepared for that.
There was also a possibility that reports would surface that someone matching his description was sighted in the Naruhata Ward. There might have even been reports of him appearing with or around Koichi, also known as "The Crawler," before his decapitated corpse was found. He had an answer prepared for that.
Where had he been staying? He had an answer prepared for that question as well.
He was ready.
Right on cue, the Chief Of Police stepped into the room and dismissed the officer that had been guarding the door. It seemed that he wanted absolute privacy.
After the canine faced man took a seat in his chair opposite of Izuku, he began to speak.
"First, I must inform you that this interrogation will be recorded for training and archive purposes. Do you consent?"
Izuku wanted to roll his eyes.
What an ametuer trick.
The recording would be kept regardless of his consent or not, and it would be shared with parties that were part of the investigation team. Furthermore, the recording was already happening at this very moment and if Izuku refused then he would only make himself look suspicious to the detectives and body language experts that studied the recording.
Thus, the only correct answer would be to enthusiastically agree.
"Yes, yes of course. I want to aid the investigation however I can," Izuku said.
"That's good to hear," Kenji said. He then placed a manilla folder onto the table and opened it up. From Izuku's vantage point, the folder was simply filled with pictures.
Kenji then slid Izuku a picture of a building in the Naruhata Ward, but upon further inspection he saw that there had been a sighting of "The Crawler" in the background carrying someone that looked a lot like himself.
"Can you verify this sighting for me?" The Chief asked him.
Izuku nodded his head. "Yes, he saved me from a robbery at the Marukane Department Store."
Kenji paused for a moment, as if he was unsure of what to say or ask next. Izuku found that interesting to say the least. That meant the Naruhata Ward authorities didn't contact him about the robbery, thus, he could not immediately verify his statement.
"So you are Izuku Midoriya, correct?" Kenji asked him.
Izuku found it humorous to say the least that Kenji posed his statement as a question.
"Yes, I am," Izuku simply stated.
"So you were present during the fire at the police station that killed several of my colleagues, including Naomasa Tsukaichi?" Kenji asked.
"Yes, that is correct," Izuku verified.
"Then explain this to me," Kenji moved the picture of Izuku's sighting in Naruhata to the side in order to reveal a picture of a charred corpse.
Izuku appeared sick at the sight of it.
"These were your verified remains, Izuku," Kenji began to say. "So how did you survive? And how did you end up in the Naruhata Ward?"
Izuku leaned into his seat. He appeared unsteady, a bit disheveled, and on edge.
"A group of villains raided the police station. They were after Detective Tsukauchi because he was close to exposing their entire operation of flooding the streets of Tokyo with a drug called 'Trigger.' When they saw me they were going to kill me, but I managed to convince them that I could be useful alive," Izuku said.
Kenji perked up at the last part of Izuku's testimony.
"So, how did you manage to convince a group of villains to spare your life?"
Izuku sighed and looked downward in shame. "Growing up I've always wanted to be a pro hero, but unfortunately I was born without a Quirk. But I've always been a huge fan of pro heroes so I kept a notebook with details of every pro hero's Quirks. So I managed to convince the villains that I could work for them. Afterwards, one of the villains used their Quirk to burn down the police station after another one of the villains used his Quirk to make a body double of me to throw investigators. I managed to escape them and I fled to Naruhata but they tracked me down and brought me back here. They...they also…."
Izuku's voice trailed off. His face was filled with sadness and guilt, and it appeared as if he was on the verge of tears. Yet, Kenji had to press on. So far everything was adding up.
"So, were these same villains responsible for 'The Crawler's' murder?" Kenji asked as he moved a picture to the side to reveal Koichi's decapitated body in the bathroom stall.
Izuku had to suppress the urge to vomit. His blood went cold and his face was drained of its color. All the Quirkless boy could do was nod his head to confirm.
"And they were responsible for these deaths as well?" Kenji moved the picture to the side to reveal the head of Makoto Tsukauichi in the toilet, as well as the charred remains of beloved cosplayer and local Naruhata vigilante hero Pop-Step.
Again, Izuku nodded, but his expression showed just how sick the pictures were making him and his visage was still flushed.
"Were you present during each murder?" Kenji asked him.
Izuku shook his head. "No, I just know because they bragged about it."
"I see," Kenji said. His expression seemed….off to Izuku.
His response as well was a little too flat for his own liking. The Quirkless boy expected the canine man to follow-up with a question that pressed the issue. He already knew that Izuku was present in Naruhata at the time of their deaths, so why hadn't he asked which villains were involved and how they managed to do it?
It didn't make any sense.
"I-I have some information for you, it's extremely urgent. May I have a pen?" Izuku asked.
"Sure," Kenji said as he reached into his pocket and handed Izuku a pen. Izuku then wrote down an address on the manilla folder.
"I managed to break away from them for good once the villains left to enact the next phase of their plan, which was to kidnap one of my closest friends and a student at U.A. named Katsuki Bakugou. They want to recruit him and make him do awful things like they made me do!" Izuku exclaimed.
Kenji's expression turned deathly serious. He immediately stood up from his chair and exited the interrogation room to do what Izuku believed was to inform the Pro Hero agencies as well as the local authorities.
After what felt like an eternity, Kenji entered the interrogation room once more.
"I contacted as many pro hero agencies that I could, including All Might's. They are currently investigating an attack on U.A. that ended with the abduction of Katsuki Bakugou, but rest assured that we will work tirelessly to bring him back home!" Kenji exclaimed to Izuku.
The Quirkless boy smiled brightly in gratitude.
"Thank you, thank you so much. I knew that coming here wouldn't be a mistake."
"Don't thank me just yet," Kenji began to speak.
Izuku gave him an incredulous look.
"In the interest of fairness, I decided to turn the questioning over to a man whom your associates took everything away from. He has gathered more evidence than me and my investigators have and he is very interested in speaking with you."
After Kenji's statement the canine faced Chief Of Police exited the room.
A moment later a man entered a room that made Izuku's blood truly turn into ice.
The man that entered the room was Knuckleduster.
Surprise update!
I promised that I would cut back on the delays so here we are. Normally I would feel kind of bad about ending on a cliffhanger such as this (I think it's cliche and exploitative to end every or most chapters on a cliffhanger) but I figured that it would be a good stopping point.
Sometimes when I come back to a story I leave "clues" for myself in the last line or last paragraph of a chapter in order to remind myself of the direction that I planned on taking the chapter that came after it.
An example is that the end of Chapter 6 ("In this world we make our own blessings,") was a reminder to myself that Izuku would be captured and interrogated because I planned on Detective Tsukauchi reusing that line later in Chapter 11 after he interrogated Izuku ("You've made your bed, Izuku. I told you before didn't I? In this world we make our own blessings. The same is true for our misfortunes. This is out of my hands.") It's like leaving a sticky note for yourself.
Anyways, just a tip for you aspiring writers out there and an explanation as to why I sometimes hypocritically end off on cliffhangers.
There had been some interest in me starting my blog that I mentioned in the previous chapter. As much as I would love to say that I have it up and running, it is simply not ready to launch yet. However I am very grateful for the interest and the kind words that have been given to me to pursue my dream of becoming a full time writer so I will have it finished by the time I post my next chapter.
Again, I am eternally grateful for the support and feedback that my story has gotten so far. I do have plans for other stories as well but I don't plan on going into detail about them until the last arc of this story is either beginning or completed. I am very much a "one story at a time" kind of person. If I spread myself too thin then nothing would get done.
By the way, this story has two more arcs left (not including this one).
As always, please Rate and Review. Any and all feedback is welcomed!