Chapter 2

Inko stared at the detective with determined yet exhausted eyes. She had not slept in what felt like years yet she felt more awake now while sitting in front of the detective. The detective who claimed he had important news for her. The detective is assigned to her husband's case and has been keeping Inko updated on everything to do with her husband's detainment. However, today was different. Little did Inko know that the detective called her not to discuss her husband but about someone she never thought she'd talk about again.

Inko recalled the phone call that took place a week ago. The detective had called inko out of the blue wanting to discuss something important. Inko had pressed the detective demanding to know what he wanted to speak to her about. The detective kept repeating over and over that they needed to talk in person. Inko finally stopped pressing the detective and they set a meeting date for the end of the week. The whole week Inko barely slept or ate. She could not get rid of her crippling anxiety as she waited to hear the detective's news.

Finally the day arrived for Inko and the detectives meeting. Inko sat impatiently as the detective riffled through the papers on his desk. "Detective please tell me what is going on. Why do you need to talk to me in person?" The detective sighed and folded his hands on top of his desk.

"Your son is alive Inko" the detective said bluntly. Inko's eyes widened with disbelief and astonishment. She could not believe the words that came out of the detectives mouth. "What the hell did you just say?" She questioned the detective.

The detective slid a manila envelope across his desk, "take a look" he said. Inko snatched the envelope off the desk and ripped it open. She pulled out several photographs of a young boy with green hair.

Inko's mouth gaped open and her eyes brimmed with tears. "What… this is impossible… I buried my son! He died! He had a funeral and everything! This cannot be him. What kind of sick joke is this?" Inko spat angrily with tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt a strong pain shoot through her heart just by saying the words "he's dead" aloud.

Her body began to shake with rage and sadness as she threw the pictures onto the detective's desk. The detective looked Inko straight in the eyes, "Ma'am, this is no joke. Your son is alive." He said sternly while picking up the pictures and stacking them neatly on his desk.

"How can this be?" Inko said staring at the detective with disbelief in her eyes. "Is my son really… alive?" Inko could barely manage the words. The detective nodded, "You have been lied to ma'am. Your son has been alive this whole time." The detective's words rang in Inko's ears. Her world erupted right before her eyes, everything she had known to be true is all a lie. All the pain and grief she had felt for so long was a lie. Her son was alive, but how? Why was she lied too? Inko's mind began to fill with questions.

It felt like hours had passed since the detective said her son was alive. She had sat there in silence staring at the pictures that lay neatly stacked on the desk. The detective's soft voice broke the silence and his face covered with concern, "Ma'am, I can see that you are feeling a lot of emotions right now and have a ton of questions. If you would like we could resume this meeting tomorrow after you have processed this information and gotten some rest" the detective said softly and eyeing Inko carefully while hoping she would take his advice. Inko nodded in agreement unable to find the words to speak.

As Inko walked home she was flooded with memories of her son and his funeral. Inko could picture her son's adorable baby face and how he loved to crawl all over her small dingy apartment. Her and her son would laugh and play games, her son was her world. She worked full time and took care of her son alone. her husband was always leaving for lengthy periods of time and then would just show up out of nowhere. Slowly those happy memories faded, Inko clutched her chest as her sad broken heart tore away at her. The memories of her son's death flooded through her mind disregarding her protests not to remember.

It was fast and unexpected, her husband was home for who knows how long this time and told her that Midoryia had stopped breathing. Inko demanded to see him as she grabbed the phone and hurriedly called the police. Her husband gave her a small look at her son whose face was no longer pink and filled with life but blue and pale, lifeless. Inko screamed and turned away. An ambulance came and took her son to the hospital. Inko and her husband arrived at the hospital demanding to see their son but no one would let them. Inko was directed to the waiting room and sat filled with emotions and thinking about what the hell happened.

A nurse slowly approached Inko and lightly tapped her shoulder to gain her attention. Inko looked up with tear stained cheeks and red puffy eyes "Is my son okay?" Inko said with a raspy voice sore from crying. "Maim your son is in surgery. He has something lodged in his throat. The doctors are doing all they can. Can you please tell me what happened."

Inko shrugged having no clue what happened to her cute baby boy. "My husband was with him when it happened. I have no idea what happened," Inko said, looking back down at the floor. "Where is your husband?" The nurse asked, "We have some questions for him." Inko looked around the waiting room unable to spot her husband. He was just here, we drove together inko thought to herself. "One moment while I go look for him" inko said to the nurse and began searching the hospital for her husband. He was nowhere to be found. Rage immediately filled Inko, how could he just leave? Inko thought to herself, he can't leave at a time like this, his family needs him.

Inko slowly walked back to the waiting room trying to figure out what to tell the nurse. The nurse looked quizzically at Inko. But Inko did not meet the nurse's eyes and softly said,"He's gone". Then sat back down and sobbed. The nurse walked away without saying a word and Inko sat in the waiting room feeling lost. After what felt like hours a doctor approached Inko. Inko jumped out of her seat and ran up to the doctor. "Well doctor!? How is my son!?" The doctor looked away unable to meet Inko's eyes, "He's gone ma'am. we did everything we could '' his voice etched with pain. Inko couldn't believe the words she had just heard, it felt like a rug had been pulled out from under her feet because she collapsed on the ground and began sobbing.

Her husband then showed up looking calm and cool, "Thank you doctor" he said with no emotion. He slowly helped up his wife and sat her down. "I'll take care of everything," he said then began to walk away. Inko did not know what to say and she really wanted to ask where the hell he had been but she was too shocked and stunned to speak. Inko just nodded at her husband and continued sobbing. The next few days went by in a blurr, the hospital paperwork, funeral arrangements, etc. Inko felt like a robot, an emotionless robot as she helped put everything together with her husband. Everything felt like one weird dream, none of it felt real.

After the funeral her husband disappeared again leaving her to be crushed by her emotions alone.

Years later after battling all of her heart crushing emotions alone Inko received a phone call from a detective. The detective said her husband had been arrested and is having a trial in a few days. Inko reluctantly agreed to go to her husband's trial but refused to be called to the stand. Her husband was not there for her when she was suffering and in pain so she wouldn't be there for him. But she would witness him getting what he deserves. After he was sent to jail Inko visited him.

Inko walked into a dimly lit room that had a row of metal chairs in front of a thick glass window with a metal frame. Inko sat down and looked at the man who is her husband and picked up the black phone so they could speak. "Hello inko," he said, not meeting her eyes. Inko couldn't hold back and the words flowed out of her mouth stained with anger, "How could you leave me after our son died?! I needed you but you left. And now you're in jail, what the hell!" She shook with anger and tears threatened to stream down her cheeks but she held them at bay. She did not want to shed anymore years for her husband. Pain struck her husband's face and sadness filled his eyes, "I'm sorry Inko' he began, his voice unsteady as if he were struggling to find the right words to say to her, "It was for the best that I left. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Her husband's voice was soft, almost a whisper and he was now looking her in the eyes, eyes that were pleading with her to believe him. Inko searched her husband's pleading eyes trying to find any truth behind his words. She could feel the rage welling up inside her, she wanted to break the glass and strangle him. But deep down she knew she couldn't, she still had a place for him in her heart and she hated that.

Inko sighed heavily to reduce her rage. She then spoke and her voice shook with emotion "This will be the only time I visit you. After this you will never see me again. Our son is declared dead and you just abandoned me here to suffer alone, you pathetic excuse for a man! Our neighbors were there for me more than my own husband! Mitsuki looked like she wanted to hunt you down and kill you, but she and her husband never left my side. They have their own kid to raise and they still supported me while my little boy is in a casket." She knew this was for the best. She couldn't bear to see the man she had loved so much behind bars. She hated that seeing him locked up brought her no joy after he abandoned her. She still loved him even after he had hurt her so badly. She couldn't understand why, but love and hate in her were equally combined.

Hisashi looked at her sadly. "I understand Inko '' he paused shorly then said, "I still love you" it looked like he wanted to say more but he remained quiet. His words struck pain through Inko's heart, tears once again threatened to explode from her eyes. A few tears had escaped and began rolling down her cheeks ignoring her decision to never cry for her husband again. She quickly brushed them away and with her last ounce of strength she said, "I love you too..." then she slowly put the phone down and stood up, leaving her husband behind. She had lost her son and then her husband. Inko felt the world crushing her as she left the jail and walked outside. She took several deep breaths and kept walking because all she could do was keep moving forward.

As Inko's mind flashed back to the present, she recalled what the detective had told her. She would be able to see her baby Izuku in the hospital. Her son was being psychologically evaluated there before being cleared to re-enter society under hero supervision. Provided the hospital gives the all clear, Izuku would become a student at UA the next school year. This was all so much to take in. Her son would be going to the Alma Mater of the number one Hero All Might, but Inko knew that he would never be a hero.

Meanwhile in the hospital, Izuku Midoriya awoke to find himself on a cot in a small white room with people watching him behind glass. It seems that while he slept he had forgotten he was taken to the hospital for evaluation. Looking down at him with a gentle smile was a young woman wearing a white lab coat.

The woman introduced herself as Dr. Riko Yanagahori, a therapist and psychological evaluator who specializes in familial trauma. Personally, Izuku didn't really understand why she would be assigned to him. He had the best family anyone could ask for. There was nothing his father wouldn't do for his sake. His father even loved him enough to get locked up in Tartarus. To Izuku, Hisashi Midoriya was the best father a boy could ever ask for. So why would that doctor be here with him instead of helping those who really needed her?

Izuku knew people who had things way worse than he ever would. For example, his dad's old student Dabi said his life was destroyed by a selfish hero who used his own family as tools. Dabi only told him once, and refuses to say how he knew the hero. He had rarely even seen Dabi since his dad got arrested.

That's fine, Izuku didn't need more information than that to hate heroes. That's just how all heroes are. They only care about themselves and their glory. They don't care how many so called weakling's lives they destroy to get it. All Might and the other hypocrite heroes even turned a blind eye as his mother died, according to his father and Shigaraki. But then a hero told him that she was alive this whole time and now here he was with this family therapist in front of him.

Dr. Yanagahori asked him who besides his father he considered as family, but he had no idea how to respond. It's as if his heart had torn from his chest and ripped to shreds. All he could feel was his entire world shattering around him. He no longer knew what to think. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel. He didn't know what was the truth and what was a lie. Should he trust the heroes for the very first time or should he stay loyal to Shigaraki and trust that his leader wants what is best for him.

Izuku had been under Shigaraki's watch and training from the moment his dad was arrested. He was like an apprentice in the league of villains. His training with them was intense. To strengthen his illusions quirk, he was exposed to a multitude of torture situations. In his very first year under Shigaraki, he had suffered enough pain for an entire lifetime for most people, but Izuku thought nothing of it. He just thought it was normal.

Shigaraki and Kurogiri always told him that if anyone wants to get stronger then they have to make sacrifices. It's impossible to grow stronger without going through hell and surviving, so Izuku chose to survive. He survived Shigaraki using decay on his back far too many times to count. That was always the hardest part of training. Each time he could feel his skin crack and his muscles petrify like stone and crumble to dust and each time was more agonizing than the last. If the session was really intense, salt would be poured and rubbed into the wound without warning. With how well Shigaraki trained him, could Shigaraki be considered family?

On the other side of things was his mother. Most of his life he believed she was dead. His hatred of heroes stemmed in part from that belief. Izuku had hardly gotten to know his mom before his dad took him away, but as faint as they were his memories of her were always sweet. Even after all these years her warm and gentle smile had stayed with him. But with how long they have been apart, can she still be called family? Were the heroes even telling the truth that she was alive. Maybe this was all a cruel trick to capture him. He was a murderer's son after all, just how much wealth was he worth? Still he could not ignore the possibility that she was alive and he might once again see her warm smile. As things were, his choices for his future all hinged on whether or not she was going to visit him.